dmiller224

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I live in Southern Cali and in the summer I get about 9 hours of sun light in the spot where I would like to grow my hops. One spot I was thinking would be great becasue it could grow about 20 feet high up to the roof. The only thing is there about a 6 foot wall that would potentially block some of the soon when it is young. Could you still grow hops in that spot??

GVH_Dan

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Sure. Its not ideal but they'll shoot past the 6 foot mark pretty quick.

The best way to find out is plant some and see what happens.

dmiller224

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What variety of hops do you think might do the best? I'm already going to be planting nugget and cascade in two other areas.

cram

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Sounds like a good spot to me, especially if the wall shades the crowns during PM sun--you'll conserve a lot of water that way. You could also rig some reflection to direct some sun to the shaded areas while they're shadowed early on. But Dan is right that they hit six feet really quick.

As for varieties, without a doubt, my Socal favorites are Cascade, Chinook, and Centennial.

dmiller224

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Thanks Dan and cram! That's awesome! I picked Mt. Hood hops tho I hop that doesn't matter..because it said it grows in all climates and I like English and pale ales. Now all I have to figure is how to attach the pully system to the stucco... ��

Crowebrew

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I've been growing hops for 4 years now, and originally I planted Centennial, Mt. Hood and Nugget. Out of those 3, the Mt. Hood are the most prolific. The Nugget never really got going and died out the second season. I live in Colorado and we have a fairly short growing season, and instead of a trellis I actually train the bines onto an old "jungle gym" that was in my yard when I moved in. The Mt. Hood produced some 20+ ft length bines this past season. So I imagine you will probably have pretty good luck with your Mt. Hoods.

dmiller224

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Well thats good to know! How far did you guys dig down to prepare the soil and put mulch and everything in there? In one of my sections I've gone down about 1.5 feet and mulched it all. But I don't know if that's neccesary for the other 2 holes

Crowebrew

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I had been using my space to grow other vegetables before the hops, so it was already tilled about 2 feet down. Basically after the bines start to die back each year I cut them close to the ground and cover them with compost. Once they start sending shoots up in the spring I feed them with more compost and wait to get a good amount of healthy shoots before I trim most of them back, leaving about 5-6 good ones from each rhizome. As long as they don't get wiped out by hail, I get a nice sized crop of hops each year, although I didn't get much of a yield the first season I planted them.

dmiller224

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So pretty much just keep putting a lot of mulch and compost on it?