8A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL August 5, 2015
Brew your own
beer? Why not grow
your own hops?
Backpacks go
fast at Verizon
The line formed early at Cottage Grove's
Verizon wireless store on Saturday for
a backpack giveaway by TCC, billed as
the largest Verizon Premium Wireless
retailer in the U.S.
Store Manager Mikail Odludas said
that while the giveaway was scheduled
from noon to 3 p.m., the 300 backpacks
were distributed into the waiting arms
of area youths within the fi rst hour. The
company will attempt to offer backpacks
to kids who didn't get one Saturday, he
said.
"It's a great event," Odludas said. "We'd
like to give backpacks to everybody,
but we were happy to help the kids and
families over the weekend."
BY KYM POKORNY
OSU Extension Service
W
photo by Jon Stinnett
Accessing God’s power
through grace and faith
G
od has a great plan for
each person’s life, and
He wants us to enjoy every day
of our lives. But we can’t do it
if we live in fear and lack con-
fi dence. Confi dence is the belief
that you’re able to do what you
need or want to do. God gives
us confi dence, but we need to
know how to access it by faith.
God-given confi dence is actu-
ally the grace of God. We usu-
ally hear grace defi ned as God’s
undeserved favor or God doing
something for you that you don’t
deserve. But it’s really more
than that. It was life-changing
for me to learn that grace is also
God’s power, freely given to
me, to enable me to do with ease
what I could not do on my own
with any amount of struggle or
effort.
Think about this for a minute.
Everyone who accepts Christ as
their Savior is taught that we’re
saved by grace through faith.
Ephesians 2:8 (AMP) says,
“For by grace you have been
saved through faith, and that not
of yourselves; it is the gift of
God, not of works, lest anyone
should boast.” But the same way
we are saved is the way we are
supposed to live. In other words,
once we are born again, God
wants us to do everything in life
by grace through faith.
This has been one of the
greatest revelations of my life.
I remember how exciting it was
to realize that God is not just
there to help us when we have
an emergency. God wants to be
involved in every single thing
we do on a day-to-day basis.
There’s nothing you’re involved
in that God doesn’t care about,
and He wants you to pray and
ask Him to help you with every
detail of your life. He doesn’t
want you to live striving in your
own effort to do anything. God
wants to be your close, person-
al, intimate friend.
I was a Christian for years
before I learned how to access
God’s grace, or power, to live
my everyday life. First, I had to
get an understanding that once I
was saved, God didn’t expect me
to live right by my own strength.
Just as I couldn’t “earn” salva-
tion through my own works
or effort, I also couldn’t really
change my heart or behavior in
my own strength. Jesus says in
John 15:4 (NIV), “No branch
can bear fruit by itself. It must
remain joined to the vine. In the
same way, you can’t bear fruit
unless you remain joined to
me.”
Every day we need to come to
God and tell Him, “God, I can
do nothing without You. Noth-
ing in my life is going to work
without You. Apart from You,
there is nothing good in me.
My confi dence is in You. I need
You all the time. I believe You
and trust You, Lord.” When we
humble ourselves before God
and ask Him for help, we can
access His grace through faith.
So to help you do that, I want
to share three things that com-
monly short-circuit our faith,
cutting off our access to God’s
power: complaining, self-pity
and pride.
Complaining is a negative at-
titude that keeps us from being
thankful for all God has done,
is doing and will do. It is a sin
we need to repent of, and then
be determined to thank God in
all things, at all times. His grace
and blessings always outweigh
the things we think are wrong in
our life.
Self-pity is simply a “poor
me” attitude. It is a form of
idolatry because it causes you
to focus on yourself and think,
“What about me?” But we can’t
be pitiful and powerful at the
same time, so let’s decide to
give up all self-pity.
Pride takes credit for what
God has done and steals His
glory. It makes us independent
of God, and we can’t bear good
fruit apart from Christ.
Before I learned how to live
my life by God’s grace, I was
a mess. I was a nagging wife,
manipulative and controlling.
And I wasn’t satisfi ed living
like that. Then God helped me
by opening my eyes to see that
I couldn’t really change un-
til I started taking His Word
seriously and trusting Him to
change me. When I made a fi rm
decision to pray and study the
Word in areas I was weak until
the truth made me strong, then
God’s grace gave me the power
I needed to overcome the things
that were wrong. And I keep go-
ing forward in my journey with
God the same way today.
God has all the power you
need to do anything you need to
do. He loves you and wants to
give you His power to live your
everyday life with joy. Lean on
Him with absolute trust in His
wisdom and goodness, and live
with God-given confi dence.
ith craft beer and home
brewing
becoming
more popular, interest in grow-
ing hops is fermenting among
home gardeners.
Oregon State University’s
hops breeder, Shaun Townsend,
said he regularly fi elds questions
from the public about growing
hops.
“Typical questions are: ‘How
do I fertilize, water and harvest?
What sort of diseases and pests
do I need to monitor for? What
hop varieties should I get?’”
said Townsend, who answers
those questions and more in
OSU Extension Service’s new
publication, “Growing Hops in
the Home Garden.”
To get started, Townsend
advises planting hops in well-
drained soils and full sun expo-
sure for optimum growth. You’ll
likely need at least a 10-foot
trellis or pole system to train
these vigorous climbers if your
interest is in cone production
– the part of the plant that’s used
in beer.
One or two plants are plenty
for backyard cultivation, he
said. A single vigorous plant can
yield about fi ve to six pounds or
more of fresh cones. Wrap the
bines, or elongated stems, in a
clockwise direction around the
climbing support to train the
plant. Use string, paper twine,
coir (made from the fi ber of co-
conut husk) or anything that the
bines can grip well.
Hops produce different fl a-
vors of beer depending on
the variety, and there are two
types of hop: bitter or aromatic.
Townsend recommended the ar-
omatic ‘Cascade’ variety, devel-
oped through the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture’s breeding
program at OSU in 1972. It can
withstand climates anywhere
from central Oregon to the Wil-
lamette Valley.
“It’s pretty much foolproof,”
Townsend said.
Other good choices for Ore-
gon are ‘Centennial,’ ‘Newport,’
‘Sterling’ or ‘Nugget’. Some va-
rieties do not do as well as oth-
ers in heat.
You can order whole plants
or the rhizome, an underground
stem that produces buds, from
online sources and local dis-
tributors. You can also dig up
a rhizome or make a stem cut-
ting from a friend’s established
plant.
January and February are the
months for digging up rhizomes
for replanting, Townsend said.
Cut about a 3- to 4-inch section
of rhizome, making sure that a
pinkish-white bud is present.
Then grow it in a greenhouse
with extra lighting. Rhizomes
can also be planted in deep con-
tainers outside or directly in the
ground after January. In May,
transplant the potted plant to
your garden plot.
When deciding where to place
your plant, keep in mind that it
grows robustly and prefers full
sun. Don’t plant it near shade-
intolerant plants that hops could
crowd out.
Apply one teaspoon to one
tablespoon of nitrogen-rich fer-
tilizer about once every other
week from late April or early
May into June. After that, the
plant doesn’t need extra nitro-
gen. Be careful not to over-fer-
tilize, as lots of nitrogen can
propagate a lush, dense plant
that could attract pests and dis-
eases, Townsend said.
Water the plant with two to
four gallons every one to three
days. Harvest your hops be-
tween mid-August and mid-
September.
Depending on the variety,
hops typically fully mature by
the third growing season. Dur-
ing the fi rst and second sea-
son, gardeners can still harvest
enough hops even though the
plant is not producing at full ca-
pacity.
By fall, you’ll get to taste the
fruits of your labor in your very
own homegrown homebrew.
90TH BIRTHDAY
For
Charlotte Booher
Please Come
August 9th 2:00-5:00pm
at the ELK'S LODGE
755 N. River Road
No Gift s Please
Looking Glass
Community
Services
We serve youth ages 11-17 with;
• Family Reconciliation
• Emergency Shelter and Basic Needs
541-767-3823
19 N 6th Street • Cottage Grove
www.lookingglass.us
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