Hop Trellis, Container grow with center poll

Hello HBT

Thought I would post some pictures and how to for my hop grow. This would be for first time growers that don't have a permanent home for their new hops. I have one Chinook and one Cascade hop each in their own 20 gallon container. There is a 1" or so "dowel" cut to 10' in the center of the container. At the top of the container is a "fish eye" hook 1/2" opening. I then used 4 more hooks drilled into the container and tied hemp rope from hook to hook. As soon as bines came out I trained them to grow up the hemp.

The Chinook took right off up the actual pole in the center while the Cascade was late to the game but took off and is showing more buds now then Chinook. Each have shown decent growth for their first year and should yield something productive. Shout out to High Hops in Windsor for the hop plants. If you live in the Denver or Northern Colorado area they are definitely worth checking out and good brew too. I will post some pics tomorrow of the new buds and growth in July, most these pics are from June. If anyone has questions or tips let me know. FYI...this is not a permanent place to grow hops but worth the costs to get things started and get the plants established their first two years before they get a real home.

Here are some more pictures of the June growth.

Had 4 lines going up and a 10' pole thinking that once the bine grew up the rope I could train it to grow back down another parallel rope. That would give me 16' of growth or so. Unfortunately the bine won't grow down so will probably miss out on some potential yield. This is why I only would promote this as a way to start and establish the plant a better yield will probably be found with a higher trellis.

FoCobrewguy said:

Had 4 lines going up and a 10' pole thinking that once the bine grew up the rope I could train it to grow back down another parallel rope. That would give me 16' of growth or so. Unfortunately the bine won't grow down so will probably miss out on some potential yield. This is why I only would promote this as a way to start and establish the plant a better yield will probably be found with a higher trellis.

Click to expand...

Yea, even first year plants grow like nothing else if given the room.

All 3 of my hop plants reached the 18 foot gutter, two are probably 20 feet and my cascade im guessing is easily 25-30 feet as it started traveling left across my horizontal line 6 feet, and i had to loop it back on itself to go back to the right..no idea how far it made it.

Getting them to grow downwards just wont happen, i learned that myself thinking i'd get them to go down after they hit the top of my 18' run...

If u made a triangular trellis, could you keep the, looping around it to keep the height to a minimum?

I think you could train the bine back and forth up a triangular trellis but it would take more time and attention to make sure the plant went the way you wanted it to. Good idea though I will look into it for next year.

Just wanted to keep this updated. These pictures are from this weekend of the cascade. Anyone got ideas of how much bigger these will get. Do they get to an inch or bigger in the first year or should I expect them to be smaller?

Harvested part of the cascade this week. Dried out to about an oz all said and done. Good smell for first years after I pull the rest should have enough for a brew at least.

Considering their in a pot and first year i think you did very good.

I have a load of cones an inch or larger on my first year cascade, but they are in the ground and were fertilized consistently throughout the mid-late growing season.

Thanks for the response. I didn't put much fertilzer or anything as I was expecting nothing so figured anything was good. Next year will definitely only let 3 or 4 bines grow. Hopefully will be able to get it in the ground for year 3. Here is the rest of the cascade harvest. Should end up with 1.5-2 oz total thinking of using it for a hop stand on an APA.

On another note I have been a bad father and neglected the chinook too much. Took a closer look today and had spider mites that's why it was lagging so much behind the cascade. Lessoned learned need to keep a closer eye on these ladies. Since I couldn't find much info on spidermites here I figured I'd post how I am getting rid of them and if its succesful.

Don't plan on saving the harvest but essentially this technique is safe enough to use if you needed to. First as others have said I washed down the plant with plain hose water (spidermites don't like moisture or wet areas). Next the wash I am using is called mighty wash, which you can find at most grow/nursery store. This is water with eloctolites kind of like gatorade completely safe to humans but the charge kills the mites and eggs. I plan to spray every 2-4 days for the next 3 weeks and see if that does it. I will keep posts of the progress and if its successful just in case anyone is interested.

Didn't take pictures of the mites before I sprayed them was too set on destroying them to get my phone. If you don't know what mites look like the images online are spot on...tiny webs little red dots in the webs is vest way I can describe them.