Oast-House Farm Ltd

Turning our hop compost from 2020. Great to see how much activity there is in the heap. Can't wait to get this back on our hop gardens.

We are looking for energetic people who enjoy physical work to join us for the 2020 Hop Harvest.

The farm is situated in Upper Moutere, half way between Richmond (20 mins) and Motueka (15mins) in sunny Nelson - and just 5 mins from NZs Oldest Pub.

Our harvest begins in late February (approx 16th) and runs for one month. We work 6 days a week (Monday - Saturday) 10 hours a day. We have some on-site accommodation and can host people with campervans/freedom campers.

We have a friendly, social team that helps mix fun with the hard work of harvest. If you want a real kiwi farm experience picking hops for the craft beer industry and can commit to 4 - 5 weeks work get in touch.

Sarau Festival poster attached - hope you can make it. Sunday 2nd Feb, it's going to be a great day.

www.saraufestival.co.nz

Thanks to Hannah, Connie, Amy, Sam, Miroslav, Kristyna, Tim, Hayden, Ross and Paul. All of this years new plants safely tucked into bags to grow on in the nursery. These will be planted into hop gardens next spring.

Golden hour photo shoot. Nice work by camera operator Jude.

Another stunning morning in the Moutere..pretty nice hop growing weather.

Time to start putting out our little red predator mites to prevent Two Spotted Mites (TSM) from sucking the sap out of the hop leaves. (The predators eat the TSM.) The predators are bred on hop leaves and come in a brown paper bag. We apply them by walking through the hop garden placing the leaves on our plants. Nice to be able to use a biological control method for this pest: no tractor and no sprayer = sustainable farming.

Cover crop on fallow ground - update...the peas and mustard are looking pretty at the moment. Bees are loving it.

As we change varieties to meet Brewer preferences for new aroma hops we are choosing to rest some blocks for a year with a cover crop to replenish soil organic matter and general biodiversity.

It's Hop training season so we are up close and personal with the hop plant at this time of year. It's nice to come across the occaisional 'Lady Bird' which is part of the natural control of the only pest to trouble Hops in NZ. They are looking healthy. For the entomologists ..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccinella_transversalis.