Hop shoots already???

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beesy

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Some hops I had last year in buckets I moved into the garage mid winter. I walked into the garage this a.m. and noticed what appears to be a bunch of hop shoots taking off. What do I do? Take them to basement and get some lights on them and start ramping them up? Take outside? It will be 1.5 months at least before no more frost in central Ohio.

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beesy,

I'm assuming they were first year plants when you took them in the garage. Most likely the warmth of the garage brought them up this early and they probably should be moved to the coldest part of the garage (if not as close to outdoors as you can come) They should have enough reserves stored up buy now to overcome the loss of the premature start which will most likely happen no matter what you do. If you have to grow them in pots I'd just repot them in bigger pots (2-4x) very deep. What you are trying to do is to retard the new growth that will come to allow the temperature to warm to the point where the new growth won't be frosted off. It would be a lot easier if you could plant them into the earth. Sorry but a couple IPA's makes me ramble non-coherently. 'B-hoppy', cuz all will work out!
 
Run out there right now, cut them all off and either sautee them in some butter or steam them and melt butter over them. They are perfect. Then move your planters outside or to the coldest part of the garage like the Buzz'n B-hoppy said. The cold should slow them down but hopefully your days of bitter cold are behind you.
 
B-Hoppy said:
beesy,

I'm assuming they were first year plants when you took them in the garage. Most likely the warmth of the garage brought them up this early and they probably should be moved to the coldest part of the garage (if not as close to outdoors as you can come) They should have enough reserves stored up buy now to overcome the loss of the premature start which will most likely happen no matter what you do. If you have to grow them in pots I'd just repot them in bigger pots (2-4x) very deep. What you are trying to do is to retard the new growth that will come to allow the temperature to warm to the point where the new growth won't be frosted off. It would be a lot easier if you could plant them into the earth. Sorry but a couple IPA's makes me ramble non-coherently. 'B-hoppy', cuz all will work out!
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Yes they were first year plants.

What about an experiment - take one outside and leave it be and take one to the basement and get some grow lights on it.

Would it be wise to try to split either of these?
 
You can experiment what ever way you want but I feel that to encourage growth at this point is going to cause you more grief with very little benefit in the end. We normally come out the loser when we try to alter what Mother Nature dictates.
 
GVH_Dan said:
Run out there right now, cut them all off and either sautee them in some butter or steam them and melt butter over them. They are perfect. Then move your planters outside or to the coldest part of the garage like the Buzz'n B-hoppy said. The cold should slow them down but hopefully your days of bitter cold are behind you.
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Whoa, whoa. You can eat hop shoots? I was always told shoots coming off rhizomes are alkaloid i.e. bitter.
 
halucin8 said:
Mine popped up this week.
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I live right down the road in the Cleveland (40/42) area. My Cascades are already 5 ft and ready to climb, my centennial is going nuts and the nugget is up 2 ft.

I had some turnip greens going to seed last weekend and a tons of hops shoots, so ended up with sauteed hops and turnip greens that I stuffed inside chicken breast and grilled. It was fantastic while sipping on a 9.8% turbo charged Bell's Two Hearted clone.
 
My Cascades are just starting to poke out of the ground here, about 70 miles south of the Georgia border.
 
Mine are close to a ft. already. I noticed them a couple weeks ago. They do need replanted though. Glad to see others are already seeing some growth.
 
ChshreCat said:
Well, isn't Mother Nature dictating that his hops grow now and by putting the pots somewhere cold to slow them down you're altering that?
Click to expand...

What I was getting at is that if they were planted in the ground, they most likely wouldn't have sprouted so early due to the earth being cooler than the area where his hops were. The way my mind works it's best if I can keep things as simple as possible without adding additional factors to get in the way. The pots, the garage . . . ?? I like to dig a hole, stick the plant in and see what happens. If it lives, it can stay and I'll toast to it. If it dies - well, I know it wasn't meant to be and I'll toast to that also!
 

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