2011 Hops are starting to grow

So, my hops stared growing a couple of weeks back and I decided to use today to lay down my soil and also rig up a new pole system for my hops to grow up. Last year I had them tied up to the four corners of my gazeebo and just kept dropping them by letting some slack in the twine as they grew closer to the top. This year I wanted a better system so I came up with the idea to mount flag poles to the four corners of my gazeebo. I then used broom handles instead of flag poles to get additional height

Cascades


Northern Brewer


Fuggles


Zeus Hops


Close up of the Zeus hops


Flag Poles mounts are adjustable, which should make it easy during harvest to just drop the poles to a 90 degree angle and pick away.


Flag poles to top are about 11 feet. I also have about 3 - 4 feet of available slack if I need the additional height.

Looks good! My first years are just sprouting, we keep getting tons of rain and not many sunny warm days here in lower Michigan so it may be until the middle of May until i see growth like that :/

Yeah, these are my second year. Last year I got a few hops from the zeus and Cascades. Not nearly enough for a full batch but I threw them into a batch anyway. I can't wait for my bounty this year.

My hops are already 4ft or so, my largest vine broke near the tip, will it grow a new tip or just sprout a new vine?

bigrich said:

My hops are already 4ft or so, my largest vine broke near the tip, will it grow a new tip or just sprout a new vine?

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It will stop there. It might start throwing side shoots that take over but it is more likely that your other shoots will just take over. Don't worry about it. Everything is alright.

And to the OP, nice hops garden!

Zeus, cascade and Foggle!
I also want these hops! In France it's difficult to find US variety. Zeus, I never heard it

leurne said:

Zeus, cascade and Foggle!
I also want these hops! In France it's difficult to find US variety. Zeus, I never heard it

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Zeus are one of the high alpha CTZ hops. Columbus, Tomahawk or Zeus. They are all pretty much the same hop.