Organic Hops
The family grew about 20 hectares of hops at Marden for more than 50 years. From the late 1970's onwards however, this rapidly reduced as the hop gardens reached the end of their lives and replacement became uneconomic. This situation was mirrored throughout the English industry and occurred as a result of a switch in consumption from traditional British beers to lagers and wine, the increasing size and global nature of the brewers and the EU driven demise of sector Marketing Boards in general and The Hop Marketing Board in particular.
In 1988, we were approached by a Scottish brewer, Russel Sharpe, wanting to develop an organic beer, Golden Promise, and were persuaded to embark on the organic adventure we have lived ever since; our one hectare of organic hops was planted in The Summerhouse hop garden that year and we never looked back. More recently, our hops were snapped up by The Wychwood Brewery where they were used to flavour their organic ale, Circlemaster, as well as Duchy Originals Organic English Ale. At the time, we were regarded as terminally insane by pretty well everyone, an opinion reflected in the fact that until 2006, we remained the country's only organic hop producer; we remained the only organic producer of traditional ‘tall' hops until the garden was grubbed out. During this period, hop production in the UK fell from about 8500 hectares to about 1000; in the parish of Marden we were the only survivor from over one hundred growers until our hop garden finally came to the end of its life in 2017. It was grubbed in 2018 and replaced with an organically managed vineyard.
Hops don't have many pests and diseases but those they do have are totally destructive. The highly precocious variety, Wye Target, that we chose deliberately to grow under organic management is moderately resistant to powdery mildew and resistant that scourge of the English hop industry, verticillium wilt. We learned to control the damson hop aphid and the two spotted spider mite using soap sprays applied in the rain which drowned 75% of the pests whilst the abundance of insect predators cleared up the remainder. Downy mildew was controlled by dusting the crowns of the dormant plants with Bordeaux mixture. We maintained fertility in the soil by growing field beans between the plants over the winter; these fix their own nitrogen, and were chopped into the soil in the spring as a green manure to be replaced with a white mustard crop. This had the dual purpose of attracting non-pest aphids into the hop garden so that the predator numbers built up in preparation for the main course of hop aphids, and of providing another green manure crop to incorporate. Further fertility was imported in the form of composted farm yard, and pelletised chicken manure from organic herds and flocks. Seaweed extracts were sprayed onto the growing crop.
The hops were harvested in mid-September, and dried and packed in our own Oast house at Little Mill Farm. This beautiful building, erected in 1896, has now also become the final resting place of the original 1830's Walker organ from Marden's Church of St Michael and all Angels. This has been lovingly restored on the top floor from whence the village Rogation Sunday service was staged on May the 5th 2013. This was such a success, that it was complimented by an annual harvest evensong, a Christmas carol service and a number of classical, jazz and rock concerts until Covid lockdown put an end to these wonderful village events. Perhaps one day, these will return; currently the building is used to host farmer gatherings and instructional courses for the village wildlife and horticultural groups.
