Hello everyone, welcome back to the Evigarding Podcast. Kevin here and I'm joined again

by Bob Romley. He's the hops technician at Sierra Nevada Brewering Company up in

Chico, California. So we've talked about some pest and diseases in yesterday's episode.

Now in a lighter note, you know, the joy, the joy of the harvest. When do we harvest

hops? How do we know that the hops are good to harvest? And finally, you know, what are

some things that we can do with hops? I think we know if we're talking to Sierra Nevada,

we've got one idea on what we can do with them. But I guess the first question, Bo,

it's a very intricate crop, I suppose. You know, you're saying they can live for 30 plus

years. You're getting multiple harvests. If it's my first time and I'm getting excited,

I see some cones on that plant. How do I know when the time is to actually take them off

and do something with them? Well, I would, you know, cones will probably start developing

instantly and more and more as each year goes on. And also not to get too deep into plant

science, but remember that hops are dioescious in that male and female plants are separate.

So whatever rhizomes you get in your yard will be all female plants.

And what was the other part of the question? The other part was like, as you see them mature,

so if you're saying hops are going to show up immediately, for example, right, like the

new home gardener might say, oh, they're ready. Let's take them. Is that a good thing to

do? How do I know when I should actually start harvesting?

Gotcha. Yeah. So, in do like your, you know, 4th and 5th year would be when your plant

will really start probably showing some good cones. And let's go back to trellising a

little bit because that's part of the game here as well. Whatever trellising you decide,

the kind of rule of thumb is let's say it's your third year of your hot plant, third or

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