End of planting time for hops is quickly approaching

I just got two rhizomes planted last week. I'm in Southern California. One has a nice big growing shoot now.

You can say that again, slight dusting of snow last night and guys are reporting their hops are still under a foot of snow. Good for outdoor lagering though.

My cascade and golding hops from last year haven't sprouted yet (Texas). I ordered/planted one rhizome of tettnang last week on a whim. I don't expect it to survive in Tx.

Yeah but from what I've learned in another newsgroup its the beginning of the pot planting season. I've heard those flower tops make a wonderful adjunct to a batch of home brew - can't testify to that myself but thought I'd pass that along...

But interestingly, there are Canadian homebrewers looking for hop rhizomes and they can't seem to get them; probably because they haven't been able to be harvested yet. And of course I don't track the weather everywhere; I just know that for many homebrewers' locations, time is _starting_ to get short -- at least for ordering them from commercial sources because we're getting lots of reports that many sources are out of stock already. Here in Arkansas, I have some hop bines that are 7' tall now, so we are well beyond the start of planting, and the way our weather is here, if a brewer plants rhizomes three weeks from now, they might very well need to struggle a bit. My point is that if anyone is considering planting hops this year, I wouldn't wait any time at all to order the rhizomes (and by the way, I don't see them; I give them away for free).

Cheers.

Bill Velek,

Maybe so re the planting time, but I thought that stuff required higher temps than mere boiling in order to extract the THC; been told that it takes something like three or four hundred degrees. Basically, I've heard that adding it to beer for extra 'kick' is just an urban myth. Never tried it myself, so I have no personal knowledge. Don't know what it does to the quality of beer, either. Seems to me that it might be better to keep them separate; drink your homebrew and smoke a joint.

Speaking of that stuff, you do know that hops is in the same family as cannabus (sp?), don't you. Consequently, there have been a number of efforts to try to graft one onto another -- hops onto maryjane and vice versa. So far no THC in the resulting product.

Cheers.

Bill Velek,

sound advice! from the 70's - God made grass, man made booze - who do YOU trust?

yes

aaawww maaaannn, that's a bummer..

:)

I agree, draconian drug laws in the over the past 50 yrs have stifled research with marijuana in the US.

It's just Prohibition all over again. What's really crazy is the cost. Here in California we have a budget crisis, which wouldn't exist if we weren't spending more on prisons than on schools. Personally I'd be a lot more upset if my kids started smoking tobacco than if they started smoking marijuana now and then on a weekend.

taxing legal marijuana would add new revenue to the federal/state/ local government, free up prison space currently filled with non- violent offenders, and reduce drug violence in Mexico. What's not to like?

Roger

Just one more thing to go buy on the reservation to avoid federal taxes. ;-)

Mark

Free up prison space, yes, reduce violent crime, maybe, but don't count on tax revenue. Pot can grow in nearly any region of the US and since the plant requires no particular processing before use, folks would just grow it at home along with their garden or house plants. There are more reasonable arguments in favor of decriminalizing than here are in favor of outlawing it, but using the tax revenue argument isn't very persuasive. Take us for example, we brew our own beer and are allowed to do so by law up to certain generous quantities so other than the sales tax we might pay for some of the ingredients and equipment there are no tax revenues on our home brew/wine. I'm curious - has anyone here ever been "audited" on their homebrewing?

Nope and I've been doing it openly since 1976

Way less than 1% of the beer drunk in the US is home-brewed and escapes taxation. So, I would say that the tax on beer is pretty effective

Roger

using the tax revenue argument isn't very

I can't see the effort of sticking seeds in a garden bed or house planter being comparable to the effort of making even the simplest kit beer. So I would suspect way more than 1% of the pot smoked would be home-grown as compared to home-brew consumption, especially if the taxation drove the pot price to cigarette levels. I just don't see the tax revenue argument holding water.

FWIW - bottom posting makes better usenet threads

snipped-for-privacy@ureach.com wrote:

Ever hear of home-grown tobacco? Most of the price of cigarettes is tax, but I've never heard of anyone resorting to growing their own

Roger

I suspect the vast majority of people are simply wayyyy to lazy to grow their own if the store-bought price is anywhere near reasonable....

-Miles

For good reasons, primarily due to the climate, soil, space and labor requirements - or simply put, inconvenience. Raising tobacco is like farming, raising pot is like keeping house plants. Tobacco isn't exactly ready for use at cutting time, consider more space and appropriate environment for proper curing. Several steps are required to bring a tobacco plant to the finished product. Pot is ready to use as soon as a few leaves, or buds, are plucked & dried.

I'm not saying NO ONE would buy pot, but to argue that it will generate appreciable tax revenues, when growing the stuff at home is SO easy, is just not going to fly.

I remember a friend in college that freaked us out by making and drinking too much pot tea. It was the only time I ever saw someone pass out from excess on that stuff. So I suspect boiling does it OK.