The new plants are sprouting!

I went out to the garden today and everything looks lovely! All of the new summer plants Arlene started from seed are beginning to sprout - the Kentucky wonder pole beans, dark star zucchini, arava and sharlyn melons, bush beans and cosmos are all taking off. The Cherokee purple tomatoes have even begun to bloom!

The hops also look very happy and the hidcote blue lavender in particular is stunning. The alyssum also looks much happier since a sprinkler head problem has been fixed. Check out the rainbow of colors we have right now. I'm so glad summer is finally here!

Kentucky wonder pole beans greet the sun

the angel red pomegranates are blooming

the purple alyssum is doing well after fixing the sprinkler head

the brilliant pink of the rosa prostrata is a bright addition to the wine aroma garden

the Cherokee purple tomato is the first to bloom

The humming of bees is audible if you visit the hidcote lavender bed

the chinook and cascade hops are thriving (apart from the one that was ripped out of the ground by vandals!)

Want to see more photos? We've finally updated our flickr page so check out the progress of our plants this year: http://www.flickr.com/photos/goodlifegarden/sets/ We still have a few more sets to upload too, so be sure to check back soon!

HOP(S) TO IT!

Last year Sierra Nevada Brewing donated the Chinook and Cascade varieties of hops to the UC Davis Good Life Garden to grow in our "Malting and Brewing" demonstration bed.

Hops are a hardy climbing perennial vines that can grow 20-25 feet in a season. We are currently in the process of building a make shift trellis for the vines right now, but it is a race against time as a couple weeks ago they showed no signs of life and now are rapidly crawling up the blue stakes our garden supervisor Ed Nordstrom installed last week!

In beer making the brewer essentially extracts the sugars from barley malt from the hop flowers and then ferments them. The hops, with their bitter oils are used to counter of the sweetness of the fermented malt. Hops are also used as a natural preservative - beer with hops keeps fresher longer.



From what I understand these vines have been known to grow a foot in a day under ideal conditions. They will die back to the crown each fall and hop back again each spring!

BEFORE (A better before photo would just show a brown stump which is what this looked like a couple weeks ago!):

AFTER:


I just love the texture that the leaves have, don't you?