It looks like a stick???

We just got three cascade rhizomes a couple of days ago. One of them had a few buds kind of like a potato. The other two just looked like sticks. Is this anything to worry about? I hope that it is not too late to plant where we live in Michigan. Alos we planted the rhizomes in large 10 gallon buckets outside and figured that we would leave them in there this summer and transplant them in the fall. The reason for the buckets is that we wanted to keep critters from eating the plants until they built up a good base root system. How long does it normaly take before you see some action? I am hopefull that hop growing is like home brewing, you spend alot of time worrying about every little thing and in the end everything turns out fine. Any feed back would be helpfull.

Thanks,


~d

Hop growing is EXACTLY like brewing in that regard. These plants are so tough it's crazy. Just put all three in the buckets with a good compost/soil mix and water thouroghly. Examine them very closely and make sure that the shoots that are present are pointing up when you plant. Put them two inches underground. That's really are there is to it. Just keep the soil moist. I too live in MI and put my new ones in the ground three weeks ago. I wouldn't hesitate to plant more until the end of the month. My four-year-old cascade has been up for a month and does very well in our climate.

Don't expect quick results with the sticks. My cascade rhizome was a stick and it's been very slow in doing anything. They need to develp roots. I ended up transplanting the smaller rhizomes into small pots and covering with clear plastic to make a greenhouse.

I finally got over the urge to dig and check to see if anything was happening.

You just never know. Of all the rhizomes I got, the Hallertuaer were the ones I was most worried about. Though the first shoots were really small, they were the first variety to have both rhizomes sprout. Now they're really picking up steam.

My Nugget rhizomes from freshops were exactly the same (very little if anything coming off of the rhizome). One popped after about a week and the other took almost 3. Now the one that popped first has very low dense foliage (almost like a shrub), while the slower grower has 3-4 bines about 4" long. I just "tied" the longest one around a small twig until it gets tall enough to train around some twine. So yeah, the growth is pretty much unpredictable and you'll just have to trust the plant. And DON'T OVERWATER!