post harvest plant care?

I have 1st year hops. I had a small harvest from my centennial and no cones on my nuggets.

What should I be doing now to prepare hops for winter and beyond?

Once I harvest, I get the hell out as soon as possible. Sometimes I say I'm going to call. Usually I don't.

Seriously, though, I think you just want to mulch over the base of the plant and that's all you can do.

I just picked my hops individually and the leafs appear green and reasonably healthy.

Do I need to cut back the vines or maybe let them keep trying to grow until 1st frost?

I always let the plants go until frost gets 'em. Then I chop the bines off a couple of inches above the ground and haul 'em to the compost pile and bury the crowns under a few inches of leaf mulch for the winter...

Cheers!

Use leaf mulch???

Let em go till the frost so they store up much needed energy for the winter. Mulch well with whatever is on hand. I always burn my bines just in case they have any disease.

I leave them up until the frosts ..they look good and they can store more energy ...but if you have established crowns you can take them down now or later - up to you.

When I do take the bines down, I compost ..but they go in a compost pile that isn't placed back on the hop mound. I do put a good heap of compost on the mound in the fall and then again in the spring. (we get a lot of rain around here)

This is the thread I was looking for. Thanks. Leaving alone till first frost.

Mine are container hops. I am planning just to pull them in the garage, it gets down to the 50's over winter. Will probably give them some water to stay damp once in a while.

sablesurfer said:

it gets down to the 50's over winter.

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Man I'm jealous. I easily get into the negatives up in the Catskills.

Brothfeder said:

Man I'm jealous. I easily get into the negatives up in the Catskills.

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I have extremely poor insulation between house and garage. Otherwise I would expect 30's and have to worry about pipes.

H22W said:

I have 1st year hops. I had a small harvest from my centennial and no cones on my nuggets.

What should I be doing now to prepare hops for winter and beyond?

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Depending on where you live, snow cover can help with preventing winter dessication. If you don't get much snow than I would add some shredded leaves 6-8" thick. Here is a link on preventing crown damage.

http://www.greatlakeshops.com/1/post/2013/05/hops-crown-winter-damage-minimize-it.html

You should read this, but it's NSFW, so be ready for some bad language.

http://www.raginggardeners.com/how-to-dehydrate-and-preserve-hops/?fb_source=pubv1

I live in Michigan. So it sounds like I should trim about a foot or so above the ground, then cover with a good amound of mulch? I will wait until we get a good frost though, I'm sure that will happen soon here.

It probably doesn't matter, but there's not much point in leaving a foot of old bine standing as the plant will be right down to grade by Spring, and what you'll be growing next season will have emerged from below grade...

Cheers!

day_trippr said:

It probably doesn't matter, but there's not much point in leaving a foot of old bine standing as the plant will be right down to grade by Spring, and what you'll be growing next season will have emerged from below grade...

Cheers!

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Ok thanks, I'll just trim it close to the ground then, and cover it up.