Bike, Scarecrow, Hops... oh my!

A weekend of firsts:

A sixth (!!) birthday meant a first bike, and first bike-riding lessons, on a gloriously sunny Saturday over at the farm. He was so excited, and he had a phenomenally good time.

Pre-flight systems check

"Mommy, I did it all by myself and Daddy!!"

What are you looking at??

He and I also made our first scarecrow together, which ended up being a fierce viking to overlook the garden plot. The scarecrow's made of old clothing, an old pillow, yarn for hair, an old plastic viking hat, and a patriotic pinwheel to add motion and reflective light-play. I sewed in a hanger when I put him together, so  hanging him up was easy - we put a nail in a big stick, put the big stick in the ground, and then hung him off the nail. A length of yarn through his belt loops runs around the stick to keep him from flying away in a strong wind. We doused him with some stinky perfume and put a bar of Irish Spring in his back pocket to make him smell more "human", since deer are my main problem.

Admiring a job well done.
(For reference, the real one here is a solid 4' tall!)

Wheee! 

Grrr... What are you looking at?

We also got our very first "farm" crop ever into the ground! We've gotten a late start with the snowing and the raining and the flooding, but we put 6 "Cascade" rhizomes into the ground (from Thyme Garden, cost about $35 with shipping and handling). Later - next week? - we'll put up a PVC tepee trellis system to support the hops as they grow.

Hop rhizomes, after soaking

Rhizome in prepared hole

The circle of  planted hops, marked with flagging tape

Clarification of where the hops are: 7' radius circle, with rhizomes equally spaced at 6 locations around it.
Later, in the center, we'll place a 15-20' pole, with twine secured to the top.
Hop bines will later run up the twine, and it will be awesome.

Assuming that we didn't plant the hops way too late - I don't think we did - I believe we can hope for a hop harvest in October. It probably won't be a super-impressive harvest, as in the first year hops are mostly establishing their root systems and don't produce as much as they would otherwise. I'm very eager to see how much I get from these, though, as this is something of a feasibility study for further hop growth. I'm absurdly excited to be growing these, though, and I hope they do well. I'm already wondering if the guys are interested in Fuggle or Nugget for more variety next year. :-)