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.
Interesting. I don't associate olives and New Zealand together.
ReplyDeleteThese are hops? I've never seen them grow. They look a bit like grape vines.
ReplyDeleteOh, 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!
ReplyDeleteSo, 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.
ReplyDeleteLavender Lady, Exhibit(ion) related photos will probably go on my Unravelling, I think.
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.
ReplyDelete15ft? That's 3 * me. Maybe I could stand next to it and Ben can guesstimate some time.
ReplyDelete