Just two weeks in, applying Miracle Grow to my hops every Sunday is fast becoming one of the highlights of my week. Crucially, I said “one of the highlights of my week”, implying that there are other high points.
And there are. The others mainly involve looking at the hops throughout the week to watch how much extra they have grown as a result of the Miracle Grow.
After a period of stunted growth, they are growing again thanks to artificial intervention. I only started two weeks ago, but am already seeing progress.
Plot 1 was well out in front back in April and by this point, I thought it’d easily have reached three metres by now. But like me, it struggled to grow taller than 5ft 8.5in. Not that I ever expected to reach three metres in height though. And now unlike me, Plot 1 is growing again. While some of the leaves are falling off, additional shoots are coming off the vine.
Meanwhile, Plot 2 started quite a bit later but is growing a lot more quickly now. And the tallest vine is now about six inches away from surpassing the tallest in Plot 1. In fact, Plot 2 is looking like the most promising destination for hop flowers, with about six vines all at various stages of growth.
There is a Plot 3, but there is one solitary vine that looks a little anaemic. Still, there is time for this to improve. Or die. One of the two.
I’ve been looking back at photos from last year and it’s still doing much better than then. And with another two months to go before the harvest, I’m still confident that I’ll do much better than the 1.5 hops mustered last year.
Hops are fascinating plants to watch, especially if you don’t have much else to do.
Onto gig-related matters, it turns out that my run of one gig a week could not be sustained. But next week, I am going crazy and doing two entire gigs in one week for the first time since March 2020.