Sad day in the hop garden

**cuinrearview** · 06-07-2008, 10:22 PM

Yesterday we had a tornado pass through about four miles north of here. The winds were strong enough here that shingles were ripped from my house. The yard is covered with limbs. Luckily, we were at a movie with a group of boys for my son's birthday.

My mature cascade lost the growth tips from every bine, and my two babies lost all but one. The good news is the cascade had already grown as big as it had in any other year, so hopefully the battered/missing leaves won't stop it, as the bines seem intact the rest of the way down. The mt. hood and centennial first year plants are a "hope and a prayer" at this point.

Maybe it's karma, as I've not brewed a batch since I put the cascade in the ground four years ago. I was finally going to put those bracts to use this year. I've visited the plants every day and was really stoked about the multiple side-arms starting to grow at every leaf on it. Guess they'll be the new climbers now.

Just needed to vent.

WBC · 06-07-2008, 11:00 PM

What a bummer. I think they will come back but it will take time. They are very hardy plants. So is anything else messed up for brewing?

**cuinrearview** · 06-07-2008, 11:27 PM

No, luckily all of my equipment is empty at the moment, except for the two batches I have bottled. We also have a tree down on a power line that feeds our house, but we still have power here!! The area just to the north is getting all of the attention from the power company at the moment, so the power line will probably snap eventually, or in a few hours when the next wave of storms hit.

And I'm not worried about the plants. I've seen growth at the side-arms today. I wasn't worried about losing them, just a hit in harvest in the near future. I'd also hoped to have a strong year out of my cascade since I plan to raise it up next spring and take some rhizomes for propogating and trading.

**Mustangj** · 06-07-2008, 11:56 PM

That suck.

We had 60-70mph winds just north of me.

**Scotty_g** · 06-08-2008, 10:47 PM

We had windy weather over the last couple of days and I also had one of my first-year hops loose its tip. The rest of the bine looks good, what little there is, and it's starting to branch down by the base so I'll still get some more shoots to train. This is hardly the first windstorm hop plants have encountered in the history of plant growth so I'm not too worried. At least my trellis poles didn't tip over.

I heard it howling outside last night but haven't had a chance to look for more damage yet.

**Mustangj** · 06-09-2008, 12:28 AM

Just got hit with another big storm.

hopboy · 06-09-2008, 10:32 PM

Sorry to read about your hops. I've had high winds in the past that have done damage. Mostly though its that damn HAIL!
Hopboy

**Homercidal** · 06-10-2008, 12:39 PM

I was at Tiger's game on Friday evening when the storm hit up north. I called my wife and she was on cell phone talking to her mom about the storm which had knocked out power and lots of trees. Supposedly had a tornado about 15 miles away. The neighbor lost 2 huge willow trees and another neighbor had a big limb land on their roof. Another had about 5 feet of shingles torn off.

We got nothing... I guess I was lucky. My hops were not high enough off the ground yet to get any wind.