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Thursday, January 11, 2007

Hop

Areas surrounding Motueka township north of Nelson used to be a big tobacco growing region until Rothmans stopped buying NZ tobacco; we also heard that it was because New Zealand government decided to stop domestic production of tobacco, so I'm not sure what the truth is. I believe around that time hop and apples started to replace tobacco, in more recent times, grapes, other fruits and olives. Most of the hop is taken down to Christchurch to make beer, Canterbury Draught.

Nelson's biggest brewery, Mac's, has recently closed its operation here and moved to the big smokes but that's another story; we have a few boutique breweries which we prefer.

More information on tobacco dated 2001 here.

8 comments:

photowannabe said...

Interesting. I don't associate olives and New Zealand together.

Faye Pekas said...

These are hops? I've never seen them grow. They look a bit like grape vines.

Lavender Lady said...

Are they really tall? It seems to me that I remember them growing very tall.

So Meg, are we going to get to see pictures of your show that starts on the 29th? I've always wanted to see New Zealand...but your exibition would make it even better.

Cristina said...

Oh, this is about hops--I read the title and at first cursory glance at the photo, I thought you were going to talk about someone hopping the fence!

photo-effe said...

it' really tobacco? is not marjuana?
I Switzerland we stop the procution

Meg in Nelson said...

So, are they called hops? OK, the stuff that goes into beer. They are tall - I don't know how tall because I have nothing to compare with, but driving past them, they are at least 9-12' tall, if now more, when full grown. We have lots of vineyards around here, so I must go shoot some vines, too, but when full-grown, they are allowed to be somewhere between 5-6' tall, I think, because they are not too much taller than me, at least from a distance. The grape vines are now verdant and lush just now, but some are quite young still.

Lavender Lady, Exhibit(ion) related photos will probably go on my Unravelling, I think.

Tony Morris said...

Kent (my county) used to be the centre of the hop industry in the UK.London east enders used to take their holidays picking hops but there are fr less grown now, probably because "chemical" beers and Lagers (ugh!!!)are the most popular. There still are pubs around that sell proper beers. Hop poles are about 15ft tall here.

Meg in Nelson said...

15ft? That's 3 * me. Maybe I could stand next to it and Ben can guesstimate some time.