When To Pick Hops

Hi Everyone,

I bought a couple of Cascade hops plants at my local farmers market and they are growing like crazy. I have never grown hops before. I have a couple of questions.

When should I harvest the cones?
What is the approximate size that they should be?
Can they be dried out in the oven on a low temperature prior use?
Also is there rule of thumb to convert a recipe that calls for pellet hops to fresh hops (Yes, I realize the Alpha Acid % is going to be off).

Thanks

Greetings egrappage, I subscribe to BYO magazine and they had an article on this subject matter.

http://byo.com/stories/issue/item/1273-processing-homegrown-hops-techniques

Check it out.  Hope it helps!