We finally received some much-needed precipitation yesterday and last night, about two-thirds of an inch in total. And wouldn’t you know that it just took getting the 1,000-gallon water tank out of storage, filled, and pulled out into the hopyard yesterday to finally get it to start raining! Check out the Cheese City Beer Company Facebook page for more pictures taken minutes before the downpour.
Throughout the growing season last year, we received several timely rains that really helped to establish all of the newly-planted hops and get everything off to a great start. But with a consensus of “long-term” weather predictions calling for a hot and dry summer this year, I’ve started to revisit some plans to install a gravity-fed irrigation system in the hopyard, thus making the watering process more uniform and efficient.