Your hands are sticky with the golden resin. There are shopping bags full of green cones in a spare room, waiting to be used or dried and stored for later.

Right around this time of year, you can probably take a stroll around the neighborhood and tell pretty easily which botonists on the block are also homebrewers.

Hop bines with full, tight cones will be climbing alongside the garage, twisting through a fence or perhaps draping themselves 20 feet high over a trellis built especially for them. (You’d always wondered during the winter what the hell that thing was.)

And depending on what variety was planted, and also where you live, you may see your neighbor outside harvesting bags full of fresh hops, ready to be thrown into a boil for some delicious beer.

If you are among the neighborhood hop heads, then you might be outside picking cones yourself. But it’s a challenge to know the right time to harvest. Also, drying and storing these hops should also receive careful attention. Otherwise, they’ll degrade and won’t contribute the fresh flavors that you’d worked so hard all season to cultivate. Below are a few tips I’ve picked up over the past three years of growing my own hops, as well as some information gathered from people more expert than myself.

My neighbors down the street, Sarah and Bryan, have some glorious hops growing along an old wire fence.

Several weeks ago, frustrated by lame attempts to control the Japanese beetles that were chewing through the leaves on my hop plants, I gave in and resorted to pesticide.

It was an insecticidal soap, supposedly non-toxic and food-safe, but I still should have known better.

The leaves are now browning at the tips and some have turned yellow. I’ve read that there are all sorts of things that cause this to happen — including lack of watering (a distinct possibility) and nutrient deficiencies. But I’ve got some pretty healthy looking compost feeding them, and this same problem happened last year when I attempted to control the beetles with a pesticide. I’m beginning to think it’s not a coincidence.

Even worse, the beetles are still chomping away.

It reminded me of this poem by William Blake. If only the beetles had met the same fate as Blake’s “foe.”

Last night, as I glanced upward at my hop trellis while coming in from walking the dog, I saw the first sign of a hop cone appearing.

The hops, they threw a party while I was away on vacation and seemed to grow about 2 feet.

OK, fine. There’s also the fact that I haven’t been tending to them, a problem that has since been corrected. The bines were going all squirrely, so I cut them back to the top of the trellis unless they were already twirling around the cross wire. Hop cones tend to concentrate near the top whenever they come in, and so you should pay attention to pruning if the bines start to outgrow your trellis.

For an amateur gardener like me it feels weird. By cutting them back, I’ll actually get more hops? How can that be? I dunno, but it’s true. Careful pruning is your friend.

So, here’s a poem describing the conflicted feeling of a cut.

As good as my Willamettes are doing, and Chinook looking strong, the Magnums have been struggling to keep up.

It’s been a hot week here in the Northeast, which makes a man feel a little less ambitious.

Even the hops are looking a little haggard.

So, to celebrate the porch-sittin’, beer-chuggin’ lazy way in us all, here’s a “poem” made famous by Johnny Russell.

REDNECKS, WHITE SOCKS AND BLUE RIBBON BEER
Writers Bob McDill, Wayland Holyfield, Chuck Neese

There’s no place that I’d rather be than right here
With my red necks, white socks and blue ribbon beer
The barmaid is mad ’cause some guy made a pass
The juke box is playin’ There Stands the Glass
And the cigarette smoke kind-a hangs in the air
Red-necks, white socks and blue ribbon beer

The tallest of the Willamettes hit the top of the trellis — a kind of red letter moment because now the bines will have to figure out where else to go. These hops are growing fast.

Looking up at these things makes a man feel small. Anyone who has seen me understands that I am not a tall man. Five-feet, eight inches if we’re being generous. And so, yeah, next to these young and vigorous plants, I feel a little stumpy.

So, here’s a poem that celebrates being short, for a change.

One Inch Tall

By Shel Silverstein
If you were only one inch tall, you’d ride a worm to school.
The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool.
A crumb of cake would be a feast
And last you seven days at least,
A flea would be a frightening beast
If you were one inch tall.

Several weeks ago, just after Sam’s 1st birthday, we brought him to church. After attending Easter services for the first time in a decade, I thought this poem by William Blake seemed as fresh as the day he wrote it. I’ve read it more than a dozen times this week and grin with each pass over.