Another Indoor Hop Growing Thread

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simonbones

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So I've searched through some of the indoor hop growing threads and read a lot of the "it's a bad ideas, doesn't work wells", but it seems as though my scenario is a little bit different. Take a look at the attachment:

IMG_4448.jpg

So I bought this nice big townhouse with no yard in downtown Houston and in the upstairs is this peculiar grow room under some skylights. There is a drain already installed and electric fixtures for supplemental grow lights. The distance from the floor to the skylight is roughly 12 feet. From one bottom corner to the other top corner is roughly 25 feet. The burglar bars at the top are perfect for attaching lines for vines to grow around.

So for those with experience growing, how much does this setup improve my chances of making a hop grow successful and what would be the best way? I don't really care about having a maximum yield or impressing those in Yakima with my grow results, I would just love to have this as a project to keep a plant or two growing to occasionally have some home grown hops to use a couple times a year. It just seems like fun and I don't know what else to do with this space.

I can put down some giant soil pots or wide troughs here and use fertilizers, etc.

I've never grown hops before, but I can't help but feel like this is the perfect setup to have something small scale and feasible.

Would any particular hop variety be better for this than another?

Would love some feedback and advice.
 
that's an awesome spot. looks like maybe the previous owner was growing something they shouldn't have been. anyhow ive been researching container growing and they recommend atleast a 10 gallon pot but the bigger the better. cascades are one of the hardiest and most disesase resistant hops to grow. they are also one of the most common home and craft brewing hops. so that's what i would recommend growing. that and maybe centennial too
 
Haha not sure what the seller's were up to exactly, but it couldn't have been anything naughty. Anybody sharing out townhouse roof could have walked over and seen in the skylight! They were elderly and retired too. I guess that shouldn't matter, maybe they had glaucoma issues.

I figured Cascade was a must. Any thoughts on Nugget or Chinook for easy growing?

I think my plan will be to set up two giant rectangular pots on each end of the grow space, two hop types total, and let them grow diagonal to the opposite corners. It should make a big 'X', but hopefully I can separate them depth-wise so they don't tangle. Good idea? Bad idea?
 
It's a nice spot for some house plants but it you want to grow anything like hops or vegetables you are going to need lights. The light from the sky light is definitely not enough to grow anything besides a house plant that doesn't need full sun.
 
It's tough to see in the picture, but there is already a blue lamp up there, presumably for growing and some electrical connections for more lights.

I'm guessing you mean to say that the sun wouldn't help much at all? Would the skylight help in buying less growing lamps or should I pretty much buy lamps as if the skylight wasn't there at all?
 
It's tough to see in the picture, but there is already a blue lamp up there, presumably for growing and some electrical connections for more lights.

I'm guessing you mean to say that the sun wouldn't help much at all? Would the skylight help in buying less growing lamps or should I pretty much buy lamps as if the skylight wasn't there at all?

I think he is saying that the plants would need more direct sunlight than what the skylights could provide. You could indeed use light bulbs to grow with, but they have to be the right type of bulbs. We're not talking about your typical 60 watt light bulb.. The proper bulbs require specific fixtures, and are quite expensive to buy and to light up.. I'd say give it a try just for the fun of it, but likely the plants will be very lanky and won't produce very good quality flowers or yield.
 
Nugget and chinook would be fine. I've heard Columbus is a big producer too. That blueish light you described having sounds like the heavy duty grow light you need. The blue spectrum imitates daylight in the summer. CFL lights are a very cheap grow light too if you're planning on adding some
 
Sunlight likely won't even get to the floor of that space. You say there are taller buildings around that can block the light. The amount of light will depend on location, other structures nearby and time of year. The sunlight is mostly going to shine on the wall if it even comes through at all, and then only for a couple minutes.

Take a case of brew and a camera over there and take a pic every fifteen minutes of daylight. Make your own time lapse and it will give you an estimate of the amount of light you are going to get. Currently we are in between solstice so we will see a little more light in the northern hemisphere the next couple months.

If you have a shared roof that would be the place to plant. Train them on a railing.
 
It'll work with full summer sun, but they'll be lanky until they hit the skylight, then they'll crowd the window. Until they hit the top, I'd hang a 400w Metal Halide in the center of the skylight.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/400-Watt-Di...ltDomain_0&hash=item5648cf8633#ht_2933wt_1139

This is everything you need, including a timer, for under $150. Not sure the exact cost in your area, but it'd be $15/month in my area to run 16 hours a day. Once they're about 10" from the bulb/skylight I'd remove the light and let the sun do the rest. Try to coordinate the timer with the sunlight. I'd plant in early April and have the light on 16 hours a day, overlapping as much true daylight as possible, and aim to remove the light at the end of June. Should get you a nice yield.
 
It'll work with full summer sun, but they'll be lanky until they hit the skylight, then they'll crowd the window. Until they hit the top, I'd hang a 400w Metal Halide in the center of the skylight.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/400-Watt-Di...ltDomain_0&hash=item5648cf8633#ht_2933wt_1139

This is everything you need, including a timer, for under $150. Not sure the exact cost in your area, but it'd be $15/month in my area to run 16 hours a day. Once they're about 10" from the bulb/skylight I'd remove the light and let the sun do the rest. Try to coordinate the timer with the sunlight. I'd plant in early April and have the light on 16 hours a day, overlapping as much true daylight as possible, and aim to remove the light at the end of June. Should get you a nice yield.
after 16 hours a day of 100% intensite metal halide, i'm afraid that the sun won't be as intense or give as many hours of high-quality light (sun will only be strong 11 am - 2 pm). it will be a step down for the plants and they'll immediately start flowering.

my opinion is that you shouldn't count on the sun to contribute in this case (at least not contribute enough to skip the grow light at any point - the sun will be like a little bonus). personally, i would figure out some way of getting some chicken wire about halfway up that space, and have the plants grow horizontally across the chickenwire once they get to that height - something similar to what the other "indoor growing" thread has depicted.

but YMMV, i'm not an indoor growing expert (at least not any more... college was a long time ago :rockin:)
 
It'll work with full summer sun, but they'll be lanky until they hit the skylight, then they'll crowd the window. Until they hit the top, I'd hang a 400w Metal Halide in the center of the skylight.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/400-Watt-Di...ltDomain_0&hash=item5648cf8633#ht_2933wt_1139

This is everything you need, including a timer, for under $150. Not sure the exact cost in your area, but it'd be $15/month in my area to run 16 hours a day. Once they're about 10" from the bulb/skylight I'd remove the light and let the sun do the rest. Try to coordinate the timer with the sunlight. I'd plant in early April and have the light on 16 hours a day, overlapping as much true daylight as possible, and aim to remove the light at the end of June. Should get you a nice yield.

Cool so I ordered some rhizomes for Cascade, Nugget, and Columbus to play with. Do you think this 400watt light would work for all three growing side by side in different big bins? Or should I hang up two? Three lights like this?

And thanks everyone for the awesome advice, this is going to be a fun project. Keep any other advice coming if you can think of it. I'll try to post pics along the way, but I'm sure the rhizomes won't get here until mid-late march.
 
simonbones said:
Cool so I ordered some rhizomes for Cascade, Nugget, and Columbus to play with. Do you think this 400watt light would work for all three growing side by side in different big bins? Or should I hang up two? Three lights like this?

And thanks everyone for the awesome advice, this is going to be a fun project. Keep any other advice coming if you can think of it. I'll try to post pics along the way, but I'm sure the rhizomes won't get here until mid-late march.

You could order crowns from Great Lakes if your in more of hurry or want more of a head start or want better first year yields( from what I've heard). I ordered some last week and they'll be here Wed.
 
Cool so I ordered some rhizomes for Cascade, Nugget, and Columbus to play with. Do you think this 400watt light would work for all three growing side by side in different big bins? Or should I hang up two? Three lights like this?

And thanks everyone for the awesome advice, this is going to be a fun project. Keep any other advice coming if you can think of it. I'll try to post pics along the way, but I'm sure the rhizomes won't get here until mid-late march.


+1 on crowns, but if you already ordered the rhizomes they'll grow fast once they get a taste of that light!

I just read how big the space is. If you choose to use lights, you'll need multiple 400's. The issue is going to be keeping the light hitting them as evenly as possible. I nullified this problem with chicken wire, but your set up is going to be tough. I would think two 400's evenly spaced apart as close to the bines as possible (You'll need light hangers, and it's tough to keep the bines from growing into the lights because of how fast they grow).

The concern I have is that at night the lights are going to make a bat signal shooting out of your roof. I'd probably save the money and try it with just the sunlight. Worst thing that can happen is you add lights later.
 
So I already ordered the rhizomes, that's the way I'll be going. Probably cheaper too with shipping.

When you say multiple 400's, you mean like one for each, or more than one each? I don't mind spending some cash to make this work. A fun project is a fun project. Not looking to save money, I'm sure it's cheaper to just buy hops. The knowledge along the way is priceless.

Any advantage to try and do this hydroponically as opposed to giant rectangular pots? Not that I know anything about hydroponic growing, just have a few friends that would probably be able to share some experience there :p
 
Everything you could ever want to know about DIY hydroponics is on YouTube. Id say three 5-gallon home depot buckets with either a Deep Water Culture or DWC/aeroponics is the way to go. Inexpensive too, and you can easily manicure the roots between grows. Nutrients are expensive, though. There are a ton of varieties out there, but I've heard floragro, floramicro, and florabloom are the best bang for your buck and have been around forever. Just expect to go through a lot. You don't realize just how much hops drink until you're manually adding every drop of water they drink. Every drop of hydro system water needs nutes.

I'd say two 400 metal halides with the sun would be golden. Id check on some devoted grow sites about the light footprint of a 1,000 watt vs a 400 watt. I doubt a 1000 in the middle is going to reach the whole closet, which is why I'm saying just two 400s. You'll need light hangers to try and keep them close to the plants, and raise them as they grow. Rule of thumb is to hover your hand near the fully warmed-up bulb. If your hand can handle 60 seconds of the heat comfortably at that distance, so can the plants. Keep the 400s 24" away until the plants are a bit established. Don't want to burn the youngn's. This is tricky because my indoor girls were vegging 10" per day!
 
I should add that 800-1000 watts of high intensity Discharge lighting (metal halide and/or high pressure sodium) is going to basically be a small space-heater. There are likely to be times where you'll want to open a window.
 
I'm new to grow hops (in Brazil-Lat 25º). I need some help! What kind of light is better to use to begin? I'll use to supply MH 250W HPI-T MASTER PLUS Light with timer. It's enough? How do you use the chicken wire? It's to hang the light bulb? Do you have photos?
If the rhizome doesn't have sun light enough, it's dies? Or its turns only vegetative? I heard that is better planting the rhizome before springtime here, because is similar the Hardiness Zone 10, I think.
I let the pot with Columbus near the Garage entry, it take sun 6h/day, if doesn't is cloudy.
if I accelerate the process of growth and flowering (with MH bright lights or sun - 8h to 14h / day), the harvest comes before, is not it? It goes before dormant also, is not it? If it's grows normally, it works and develops out better? Or not?
 
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