hemp harvest

A few weeks ago Scott and I had the pleasure of being part of an industrial hemp harvest. Harvesting involved collecting the stalks, ensuring they were of a certain size, stripping back some of the leaves, piling them together and then collecting three piles together and standing them up like a teepee and tying them together, these are called stokes and are used to dry the crop. This trial plot of industrial hemp was planted as a not-for-profit project to raise awareness and to trial a technique which is suitable to our region. Once stripped the crop will be used to build an on-site educational studio out of the hemp stalks and hempcrete, demonstrating one of the thousands of ways in which hemp can be used. Hempcrete is an absolutely amazing building product, it has great thermal insulating and acoustic properties, buffering temperature and humidity, preventing damp and mould.
I have to say that the day of harvesting warmed by heart and widened my smile, I admit I did romanticise it a bit by creating visions of Amish barn raising in my head, but honestly I did not have to romanticise too much at all, it was a nurturing, sweaty and community building day. I loved that there were all sorts of people helping, from the very young to yes the ones who were older than others. We sweated together, exchanged stories, shared a meal and relished the drops of rain that sometimes stopped to refresh us. It was beautiful and I look forward to seeing how this crop will further wield it's magic on our community (n.b industrial hemp contains no THC, just in case you were curious).