Small Scale Hops Growing

skeeordye11 · 03-25-2010, 11:34 AM

I saw an article somewhere that showed how to grow hops in buckets, at least to get them started. I thought it was in BYO, but for the life of me I cannot seem to locate it. Does this sound remotely familiar at all to anyone? Can someone direct me back to that article if so? I picked up a rhizome last night at homebrew club and I want to get it going here pretty soon. Thanks!

skeeordye11 · 03-25-2010, 12:55 PM

Nevermind, I found it online. It was BYO. Here's the link if anyone is interested.
http://byo.com/stories/article/indices/37-hops/1926-growing-hops-in-containers

GVH_Dan · 03-25-2010, 01:48 PM

The best insight from that article was this part:

Quote:

Adjustable Trellis
If you set up the adjustable trellis as described earlier, the hop vines will soon grow towards the top of the stake. When they are a few inches below the eye, untie the twine from the base of the stake and feed out a few feet of twine, letting the vine droop a bit. You may need to pull the vine gently downward to get the twine to slide through the hook and eye. Then, loosely tie the twine to the stake again.

As the vine grows, you’ll need to feed out more twine every time it approaches the top of the stake...

I found they are much happier constantly growing up in this fashion then if you just put them on an 8 foot pole. Since I haul my hops-in-pots to beer festivals and other talks, I actually use a pole that is retractable. Then I can get the whole thing in the back of a minivan. When I get there, it takes a few seconds to set everything back up. Even with all this abuse, I still get some hops off of these potted plants.