Perfectly Ripe Hops !

Here on Oct. 4 2006 is a picture of my Golden hops plant. This is the 'perfect ripeness for harvesting the cones.

I'm holding the same "leafy cone" I photographed earlier, and posted below.

At this stage the seedless, female flowers are at peak ripeness. The skunky aroma they had three weeks ago has become a strong smell of garlic ! Crushing a flower in your fingers makes a sticky and intensely fragrant blast !

There are no seeds in this crop as no male plants were anywhere close.

However, since I had no use for the flowers, I chose to just leave the crop to ripen further on the vine. Perhaps a seed or two just might form, I hoped.