Hop picking usually starts about now.
http://www.bygonebodiam.co.uk/Introduction.html
My dad was seriously into the business with Arthur Guinness, and we lived the life of aromatic clothes, early, and non-existent nights when things went awry. We never really saw my dad, we just smelt him!
In later life, I was involved in a lot of design work for new gardens, machinery, oasts and other buildings, and I just loved it all. The government farming 'quota' system ruined the industry back in the early seventies, and Guinness packed up and left, leaving a whole traditional industry to fend for itself.
There's just one hop farm around here now, and someone told me that they bought some of the redundant machinery from our old farms!
I wonder if they have the special oast drying mats I designed...
I might jump on my bike and go and ask them...
4 comments:
You should write more about this, I've a friend who has just started recently growing hops (in Wales) and producing his own beer.
Thud, if you click on this Bodiam link, and delve a bit further, you may well come across some names you recognise...
Try this one for size!
http://www.bygonebodiam.co.uk/Bodiam%20Memories.html
I'm a bit rusty on recent events in hop growing, but can always generalise if your chum wants more info! You know my email address!
"The government farming 'quota' system ruined the industry..." Governments ruining everything they touch seems to be a fundamental law of the universe. Currently doing more damage than the coronavirus but nobody is surprised.
Too true, Mr H!
I never understood why the government plonked a quota system on farmers and others.
If they took as much notice of real small - or large - businesses as they should have done, Kent and Sussex would have been a hotbed of hop production!
There was, however, an increasing problem with verticillium wilt, and some gardens were devastated, so there were some economic factors to consider, but the smaller farms just couldn't make a business and packed up as well. Imports were probably cheaper too.
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