Another hop project - Lake County Florida

Yakima 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
A

atsorrento

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 6, 2012
Messages
75
Reaction score
9
Hello all! First time hop grower here. I would like to use this forum to post success and failures in my hop growing adventures. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

On Sunday April 27th 2014 I planted 2 cascade and 2 centennial rhizomes, each in a 30 gallon pot w/one cascade in the ground by my fence. I used potting soil and cheap black pots purchased from a local nursery. All but the in-ground cascade have broke ground already. I'll post pictures shortly.

:rockin:
 
Be very interesting to see how your project goes. I was very close to starting some plants and everything I heard was to forget it for my area!
 
One of the guys at the Sanford homebrew shop successfully did it so I figured what the heck :fro:
 
Flboy said:
Where you pick up your hops?
Click to expand...

I bought them on eBay. The centennial were from beer-wineus and the cascade appeared to be from an individual. The centennials where huge but the cascades were tiny.
 
atsorrento said:
One of the guys at the Sanford homebrew shop successfully did it so I figured what the heck :fro:
Click to expand...


Great home brew shop, I saw all the hop pics Aaron put up on their Facebook page, it looked like they did really well
 
Im close to Kissimmee. I have been posting progress along with others in this area in the thread linked above in post #7.

I put two cascade and two centennial in the ground by my privacy fence on April 25th. All have sprouted as of today. The cascades came up quickly. I dug holes and added a mixture of miracle grow potting soil and miracle grow garden soil then planted the rhizomes. Two cascade close to each other and the centennials about 10 feet away from them.
 
Sweet! Looks like Florida is on the map for being able to grow hops!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
I'm in port saint lucie florida. I bought hop rhizomes from Michigan hop alliance in late February. Massive in size. I got nugget, cascade and centennial. The nugget and cascade are growing like crazy with the centennial going slow. I'm getting ready to pick any day now on the cascade with the nugget right behind. Use thick jute line. They don't climb well on the thin stuff. cheers.:drunk:

DSC03464.jpg


DSC03465.jpg
 
Awesome! What did u make your trellis out of?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
I had some pvc lying around so I pounded a 2' long piece of 2 1/2"(I think) into the ground and set a 12' piece of 2 or 2 1/4"(whatever is relatively tight fit) pvc inside of it. I put 1 bolt through it. At the top I put a pulley on. I tried to do the same on the other side of the pots but there were a lot of roots in the ground so I just strapped up another pulley to an areca palm around 12". I had some really nice plastic stakes that I put in the ground at the bottom of the tree and at the bottom of each planter. I added 2 more bolts at the bottom of the pole that I used to secure one end of jute twine. I ran that twine through the pulleys and secured at both ends. I then ran twine up from each planter to the line going through the pulleys. I also secured the pole to the house with some line and screws to help keep it straight because pvc will melt under stress and heat. The line with the pulleys was designed to loosen for picking purposes if my ladder was too short. You can skip the pulley part if you can reach them. Most of this was spare parts except the jute. Make it super secure because they get heavy as they grow and the sun will destroy that thin jute. Make sure you there is slack in the vine where it starts to climb up the jute so it doesn't get pulled out of the pots when the wind blows hard.:mug:
 
Also the cascade in the ground near the fence keeps getting chewed on by something. Had to re-bury. No picture of that one :(


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Next thing on the list is to figure out how to secure the two 16ft uprights that are only about 3.5ft in the ground. Wire anchors? Add two more and make a really tall pergola?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Haha nice! Yeah that part of the yard is pretty dead hence the trellis. I'm on an acre too and refuse to go broke making my entire yard look good. But yes you are right. I would say I have more of a green middle finger than a thumb :)


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
For those that don't know, sissal rope shrinks quite a bit. I thought I left a bunch of slack but now I need to loosen everything after yesterday's rain. Good thing I used quick release clamps at the top :)


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Ok, I had to lengthen the ropes by about 10%. We'll see how that works :)


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Alright here is where they are at now. Not much growth at all. Is this right for first years?ImageUploadedByHome Brew1403481210.222250.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
I recently started using tomato fertilizer (3-4-6). A couple of weeks before that I used some cow manure. All in all I have only fertilized twice so far.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Sweet! How tall did they get the first year?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
atsorrento said:
Sweet! How tall did they get the first year?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
Click to expand...

They were mostly horizontal the first year because i didn't want to build a tall trellis if it wasn't going to grow.

I would guess in all it grew about 12-15ft in total lats year. This year its surpassed that and is prob around 15 ft already and still growing. I know I need a decent ladder to wrap them around the top of the rope now.
 
How often do you fertilize and what do you use?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Harvested yesterday. Got about 1 handful all together. About what I expected. We'll see what happens next year :)
 
It's May and 2 of the 3 plants have reached the top of the trellis already. Question: one of them has already started flowering. I'm thinking it is because of the recent 'cool' snap we have had. Should I switch away from a vegetative fertilizer?
 
Ok i figured it out. I basically used the first growth on the one plant that is flowering early. I switched to bio-bloom on that one. I also found out that commercial growers actually clip this early growth so all of their plants "bloom" at the same time.....makes harvesting easier. Hope this helps anyone else :)
 
Maybe there are some Florida variety of hops, but the ones I used above have all died post 2nd year. They never came back for the third growth year. 2nd year growth started in January and I had full cones (minus lupulin-the most important part!!!) by May. These particular hops don't do so well in Florida. Is any one else getting more than 2 years worth of growth? If so, what kind of hops are you using? Hopefully others have had better luck.
 
Try nugget or cascade and make sure they are in an area where they will get relief from the florida sun. I have had best luck with nugget this year. They are new since I moved and lost interest last year. I finally found a great spot under a huge oak tree. No fert so far just miracle grow dirt.
:mug:
 

Similar threads

iandanielursino
Sanity check on pole based hop yard design with boxes
Replies
31
Views
1K
Dland
Dland
shrews824
My First Attempt At Growing Hops.
2
Replies
41
Views
4K
JAReeves
JAReeves
ianmurchison
Planning the hop field
Replies
18
Views
2K
ianmurchison
ianmurchison
redarmy990
First year hop grower
Replies
5
Views
764
CodeSection
CodeSection
TrickyDick
Help with Hop Planters
2
Replies
40
Views
4K
Ruint
Ruint
Williams Brewing 300

Latest posts

Back
Top