March 8, 2026 • 9 mins
James McNamee of Garston Hops looks at harvest season which is just around the corner.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
The muster on the farm with Southland District Council working
together for a Beta Southland.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Why do you a way up to Garston this afternoon
on the muster James McNamee of Gaston Hops growing hops
in northern south and you said, it's a thing. We've
spoken to James on a number of occasions and we
catch up once again not far out from harvest. Good afternoon, James.
I texted you before to see how things are going.
You said it was bloody chaos.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yes, afternoon there you going, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Going pretty good here house things up there, they're just
pretty full on, I imagine.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, we're just getting reeve and so we've got a
few changes. We're doing the harvest here, so we've got
to build us here, Sparky's here, all sorts of trades people.
So yeah, just getting giving ready or harvest.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well I suppose as well, because you've been doing this
for a couple of years now, and learnings isn't a
very nice word, but it's exactly what you'll take from
one season to the next growing hops.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Oh, absolute learning. There is learning. It's learning your machinery
and it's.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Learning your growing your crop and your cycles and your weather,
and every season is different, it presents of different challenges.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
So as far as the season's being different, what's been
the biggest challenge that you're faced on the farm For this.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
One, which spring was.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
A feat the main crops so much for the feat
of the new garden that we were putting in, so
it was very wet. We couldn't work for the ground up,
so we were delayed planting it, which means we won't
get the harvest off it this year or just lift
us in the ground. So that was probably expected, but
it just means a early year away from getting any
product off your investment.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So as far as a life cycle of a hot
winds planting occur.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
In the spring and we really want to get it done.
If you other things you're trying to get done for
all every weekend seems to be what quite a few
farmers say on some crops. But we try and get
it done in September, but was really in November before
we got a chance to.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Get that padict worked up.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
So you know, you have to plant once and then
you leave it here, so you don't have to plan
every year. It's just when you're doing a new garden,
there's a problem.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
As far as yield, what are you hoping for this year?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
We're hoping for somewhere between twenty five to thirty ton
of hops, so getting bigger each year. Last year we
had seventeen ten. So the pop plants yield more each
year as they get older more mature. It takes them
three to four years of maturity. So even if we
didn't plant anymore hops each year a year will be
(02:36):
going up as each garden gets more mature.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
So what are you basing the yield off? As far
as cropping the ground, what's what? What area are we talking? Roughly?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
We're going to harvests about twenty one heap years this
year and the garden we aren't going to harvest us
seven heat years. So we've got twenty eight heat years
in crops now and we have seen twenty one heap years.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So the other seven that you're not doing is that
the one is that the stuff that didn't take? Is
that right?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Great?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yes, that's quite a bet in an operation though not
to be up and running well.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yes, yes, yes, to fact that the fact then as
you go, but it's just part of the cycle getting
up to speed.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
It takes three to four years.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
To get them up, and you've got an extra year
at the beginning as well as you bring the plants
in when they're little and you put them in the
nursery area for a year and they stay there to
get used to the environment, and then the second year
they go out in the gardens. So it's probably five
years before they get up the full speed.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
So you're trying different varieties each season.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
James, we are still doing the five maintain varieties that
we've been doing.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
They're being doing well. We do want to look at
trying our little ones.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
We got little mounts one hundred and two hundred plants
of little varieties and just working out which ones goes
best for you. And we're still looking at the idea
of getting a local grown pop based off the old
wild feral plants of around here for the laste hundred
and fifty years from the old online days.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
So the storks foring that idea as well.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So as far as the frosts that we've hit over
the past, wait, what's that going to do? What's that?
What's going to happen there regarding the crop.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Well, the frosts putting a stress on the plants, so
it will make them produce different files, which is the
compound inside the hops, and different flavors, so you'll get
a different flavor hops and then.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Beer out of it. So the brewer is actually quite lock.
Like the stress on the hops.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
One of the.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Things spread tearra.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Growing hops down here is there a different tiara in
their lattitude and having hot days between having and then
the cold nights puts different stresses on them so that
you have different flavor beers from the hops.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Well, when you say different stresses from a farming viewpoint,
that's the last word you want to hear. But obviously
in the game you're and it's a good things.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I put the plant down and the stress is a
few years ago it snowed One Day's Red Harvest and
Garage Project made a vehicle fucking hops and snow and
it was really really good, and it was unique because
put the flavor out that the hops don't usually.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Do how intensive as the harvest as such, like labor wise.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Pretty intensive.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
We're expecting between thirty two and thirty five people to
turn up on Sunday, so they'll turn up on Sunday.
We're a induction day on Monday and then we'll start
that'll be split into two teams and we'll have a
morning shift and an afternoon shift. So effectively what we
have seen from five to three in the morning to
(05:48):
midnight split into two shifts.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
So we've got to simulate all those people into two teams.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Last year we had twelve different nationalities.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
So you're going to make sure that we have some
common way.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Is they understand how to do the job effectively and safely,
so they all return to their homelands with all fingers
attached and all nicely sealth, health and safely and having
fun and enjoyed their time.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
That's a good way to look at it. Do you
put them up accommodation wise?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Most of them, we have got some combination. Yet most
of them tend to bring their own van, their backpackers.
They're traveling around New Zealands. What they tend to like
is somewhere to part of their van, somewhere to do
their cooking and cleaning and the rule's fastest WiFi known
to mankind.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
And very happy Larry.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Now, as far as the messaging that you're doing there
at cast and hops and you're telling your story, are
you getting a lot of push through as far as
your product, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
We seem to be doing all right.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
We do have a unique product because of the different
terror or their soil and their climate and in their
latitude day one hours. So yes, we are getting pushed
through and selling around with now selling products in New Zealand's, Australia,
the United States, Canada, UK and we've got their first
(07:15):
European brewery and Hollands and we've got some hops and
South afric and we've got interest from Japan and Germany
coming this year.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
What doesn't like for regulations and n p I and
everything when you're doing hops, well, hops.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Are a food group, so you've got to you've got
to have your basics.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Basics food group safety.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And there make sure everings clean, stopped after uh and
simple stuff like when you're when you're greasing machinery, use
food safety Greece rather than normal Greece. So we have
a whole whole program, in whole audit to make sure
we're doing that.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Just finally, James, so what's happening up there this weekend?
Speaker 4 (07:59):
And that's when kid, we're getting ready for a harvest
and all the people arriving then will start and then
the follow weekend is actually we have a bit of
as events, so we'll just be taking the hops from.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
The fresh hops you can use once a year when
they're not poetized, and we'll be taking up to Quinstown
and what do we be doing them like they did
one hundred years ago. We're going to use horses, Clydesdyle horses.
We use the steam train and a boat and then
we take the hops across the Alsie Brewing and they
tip them in, the top them in the kennel and
they make a fresh hop beer.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
So that's.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Hopefully they'll have have a hoppy beer and we also
company that with a hoppy sheep.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Now that's awesome. James, always appreciate your time catching up
as to what's happening there. And after harvest we'll do
a bit of a recap. Always appreciate you catching up.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Excellent, great now, thank you for that, and yeah, hopefully
hopefully the rest of the week goes well and look
forward to seeing you around the farm sometimes for a beer.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Why do James McNamee of Garston Hops Still a fascinating
story growing hops in northern Southland A different kind of story,
the story of the black Caps coming second in the
T twenty Cricket World Cup. Andrew Watterson raps it next
The muster on the farm with Southland District Council working
together for a Beta Southland.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Why do you a way up to Garston this afternoon
on the muster James McNamee of Gaston Hops growing hops
in northern south and you said, it's a thing. We've
spoken to James on a number of occasions and we
catch up once again not far out from harvest. Good afternoon, James.
I texted you before to see how things are going.
You said it was bloody chaos.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yes, afternoon there you going, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Going pretty good here house things up there, they're just
pretty full on, I imagine.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, we're just getting reeve and so we've got a
few changes. We're doing the harvest here, so we've got
to build us here, Sparky's here, all sorts of trades people.
So yeah, just getting giving ready or harvest.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well I suppose as well, because you've been doing this
for a couple of years now, and learnings isn't a
very nice word, but it's exactly what you'll take from
one season to the next growing hops.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Oh, absolute learning. There is learning. It's learning your machinery
and it's.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Learning your growing your crop and your cycles and your weather,
and every season is different, it presents of different challenges.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
So as far as the season's being different, what's been
the biggest challenge that you're faced on the farm For this.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
One, which spring was.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
A feat the main crops so much for the feat
of the new garden that we were putting in, so
it was very wet. We couldn't work for the ground up,
so we were delayed planting it, which means we won't
get the harvest off it this year or just lift
us in the ground. So that was probably expected, but
it just means a early year away from getting any
product off your investment.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
So as far as a life cycle of a hot
winds planting occur.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
In the spring and we really want to get it done.
If you other things you're trying to get done for
all every weekend seems to be what quite a few
farmers say on some crops. But we try and get
it done in September, but was really in November before
we got a chance to.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Get that padict worked up.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
So you know, you have to plant once and then
you leave it here, so you don't have to plan
every year. It's just when you're doing a new garden,
there's a problem.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
As far as yield, what are you hoping for this year?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
We're hoping for somewhere between twenty five to thirty ton
of hops, so getting bigger each year. Last year we
had seventeen ten. So the pop plants yield more each
year as they get older more mature. It takes them
three to four years of maturity. So even if we
didn't plant anymore hops each year a year will be
(02:36):
going up as each garden gets more mature.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
So what are you basing the yield off? As far
as cropping the ground, what's what? What area are we talking? Roughly?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
We're going to harvests about twenty one heap years this
year and the garden we aren't going to harvest us
seven heat years. So we've got twenty eight heat years
in crops now and we have seen twenty one heap years.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
So the other seven that you're not doing is that
the one is that the stuff that didn't take? Is
that right?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Great?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yes, that's quite a bet in an operation though not
to be up and running well.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yes, yes, yes, to fact that the fact then as
you go, but it's just part of the cycle getting
up to speed.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
It takes three to four years.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
To get them up, and you've got an extra year
at the beginning as well as you bring the plants
in when they're little and you put them in the
nursery area for a year and they stay there to
get used to the environment, and then the second year
they go out in the gardens. So it's probably five
years before they get up the full speed.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
So you're trying different varieties each season.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
James, we are still doing the five maintain varieties that
we've been doing.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
They're being doing well. We do want to look at
trying our little ones.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
We got little mounts one hundred and two hundred plants
of little varieties and just working out which ones goes
best for you. And we're still looking at the idea
of getting a local grown pop based off the old
wild feral plants of around here for the laste hundred
and fifty years from the old online days.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
So the storks foring that idea as well.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So as far as the frosts that we've hit over
the past, wait, what's that going to do? What's that?
What's going to happen there regarding the crop.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Well, the frosts putting a stress on the plants, so
it will make them produce different files, which is the
compound inside the hops, and different flavors, so you'll get
a different flavor hops and then.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Beer out of it. So the brewer is actually quite lock.
Like the stress on the hops.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
One of the.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Things spread tearra.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Growing hops down here is there a different tiara in
their lattitude and having hot days between having and then
the cold nights puts different stresses on them so that
you have different flavor beers from the hops.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Well, when you say different stresses from a farming viewpoint,
that's the last word you want to hear. But obviously
in the game you're and it's a good things.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I put the plant down and the stress is a
few years ago it snowed One Day's Red Harvest and
Garage Project made a vehicle fucking hops and snow and
it was really really good, and it was unique because
put the flavor out that the hops don't usually.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Do how intensive as the harvest as such, like labor wise.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Pretty intensive.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
We're expecting between thirty two and thirty five people to
turn up on Sunday, so they'll turn up on Sunday.
We're a induction day on Monday and then we'll start
that'll be split into two teams and we'll have a
morning shift and an afternoon shift. So effectively what we
have seen from five to three in the morning to
(05:48):
midnight split into two shifts.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
So we've got to simulate all those people into two teams.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Last year we had twelve different nationalities.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
So you're going to make sure that we have some
common way.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Is they understand how to do the job effectively and safely,
so they all return to their homelands with all fingers
attached and all nicely sealth, health and safely and having
fun and enjoyed their time.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
That's a good way to look at it. Do you
put them up accommodation wise?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Most of them, we have got some combination. Yet most
of them tend to bring their own van, their backpackers.
They're traveling around New Zealands. What they tend to like
is somewhere to part of their van, somewhere to do
their cooking and cleaning and the rule's fastest WiFi known
to mankind.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
And very happy Larry.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Now, as far as the messaging that you're doing there
at cast and hops and you're telling your story, are
you getting a lot of push through as far as
your product, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
We seem to be doing all right.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
We do have a unique product because of the different
terror or their soil and their climate and in their
latitude day one hours. So yes, we are getting pushed
through and selling around with now selling products in New Zealand's, Australia,
the United States, Canada, UK and we've got their first
(07:15):
European brewery and Hollands and we've got some hops and
South afric and we've got interest from Japan and Germany
coming this year.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
What doesn't like for regulations and n p I and
everything when you're doing hops, well, hops.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Are a food group, so you've got to you've got
to have your basics.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Basics food group safety.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And there make sure everings clean, stopped after uh and
simple stuff like when you're when you're greasing machinery, use
food safety Greece rather than normal Greece. So we have
a whole whole program, in whole audit to make sure
we're doing that.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Just finally, James, so what's happening up there this weekend?
Speaker 4 (07:59):
And that's when kid, we're getting ready for a harvest
and all the people arriving then will start and then
the follow weekend is actually we have a bit of
as events, so we'll just be taking the hops from.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
The fresh hops you can use once a year when
they're not poetized, and we'll be taking up to Quinstown
and what do we be doing them like they did
one hundred years ago. We're going to use horses, Clydesdyle horses.
We use the steam train and a boat and then
we take the hops across the Alsie Brewing and they
tip them in, the top them in the kennel and
they make a fresh hop beer.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
So that's.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Hopefully they'll have have a hoppy beer and we also
company that with a hoppy sheep.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Now that's awesome. James, always appreciate your time catching up
as to what's happening there. And after harvest we'll do
a bit of a recap. Always appreciate you catching up.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Excellent, great now, thank you for that, and yeah, hopefully
hopefully the rest of the week goes well and look
forward to seeing you around the farm sometimes for a beer.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Why do James McNamee of Garston Hops Still a fascinating
story growing hops in northern Southland A different kind of story,
the story of the black Caps coming second in the
T twenty Cricket World Cup. Andrew Watterson raps it next
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