South Georgia Hops

I decided to try my hand in growing some hops this year, I'll be posting my progress. I live in south Georgia and it gets scorching hot down here so we'll see how it goes! Here they are, freshly planted. Cascade will be on the left and Columbus on the right. I'll get the rope up sometime next week. I don't think the picture is going to upload for some reason, but I'll post it when I get to work in an hour...

Several members of the Augusta Homebrewers Association, including myself, grow hops. We had pretty good luck here in Augusta. It important to pick some that are hearty, and I think you have. I water mine about a pint every 2 days. Last year was my first year and I had two that grew about 12 feet long. My friend John actually got a very good harvest off of his last year.

Yea I was wondering how wet i should keep them right now, I plan to put some mulch down over them soon to combat evaporation. Those poles are 8 feet tall, 7 from the top of the bed so they have 7 feet to climb initially. I'll be slacking the rope and wrapping it around the pole and then leading it back through its hole and back up to the top to give them as much height as i can. Looking forward to this new venture...

Subscribed. I am in Savannah and have thought about starting. Keep us updated.

I live just north of atlanta and I always hear that Mildew from our high humidy and bugs are our issue here. This is my 3rd year and I haven't had a problem with either yet. I do trim off the bottom 12 inches of leaves once they start to get tall to help with the mildew anyway. Good luck! I got 7lbs of cascades last year.

Subscribed
Like the way you have that set up.

hoppymonkey said:

I live just north of atlanta and I always hear that Mildew from our high humidy and bugs are our issue here. This is my 3rd year and I haven't had a problem with either yet. I do trim off the bottom 12 inches of leaves once they start to get tall to help with the mildew anyway. Good luck! I got 7lbs of cascades last year.

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I'm starting my first year with 5 types in Marietta.

Hoppymonkey
How many cascade plants did it take to get those 7 lbs thats awesome.

I have a wild variety of hops from PA growing here in Columbus, first year. I have mine growing in partial shade, and they are about 1' tall. I figure that I would rather risk lower production than killing my hops with too much heat. Once they have established, I'll see how they handle the heat in a more exposed location.

Yeah i've been a little worried about the heat too, but thats one advantage of planting them in these barrels...if it ends up being too much for them I'll just move them to an area with more shade.

Awesome! I'm jealous. Living in an apartment, I don't really think I can handle a hop vine climbing up the side of my building...

Hope they turn out!

brewswellwithothers said:

I'm starting my first year with 5 types in Marietta.

Hoppymonkey
How many cascade plants did it take to get those 7 lbs thats awesome.

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I didnt plant single rhizomes. A guy in our club gave me a huge clump of rhizomes about the size of a 5 gallon bucket wide and about 20" deep. I planted those in a raised bed that is 6'x 4' x 2'. They have done very well there as long as I give them a shot of fertilizer during peak growth.

hoppymonkey said:

I didnt plant single rhizomes. A guy in our club gave me a huge clump of rhizomes about the size of a 5 gallon bucket wide and about 20" deep. I planted those in a raised bed that is 6'x 4' x 2'. They have done very well there as long as I give them a shot of fertilizer during peak growth.

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Holy crap!

Update! The cascade have some shoots coming through, but still waiting on the Columbus to show. Also a member on here is sending me some cuttings he didn't have room for of an unknown variety that I'll be planting when it gets here. Cheers!

Nice! I need to update my plant growth pics now that I have coir going to them and a few are starting to be tall enough to train.

Update: I've planted the third hop rhizome (mystery hop courtesy of generous hbt member Frankiesurf) and ended up needing to put down chicken wire necause of the squirrels. They had dug up one rhizome and ate off the shoots of the other. Everything is safe and back to normal now...hopefully. All three varieties show signs of growth, with the cascade (unsurprisingly) growing the fastest...we've had a bit of a rain spell here lately without much sun so they've slowed a bit but they'll pick right back up i assume. Here's some pics

One more quick update, last one for a while probably seeing as there won't be much more to report until harvest time...i got all the rope up and they're all growing...the cascade will be ready to train soon, heres a few pics

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Quick update: checked on the hops today and noticed some cones beginning to form on the Columbus...i'm excited!

Let me know how this works, I have a brewers supply store in Saint Marys Ga.
2014 Osborne Road. (912) 882 2111 Steve

Quick update: the plants are doing good for their first year. I've already had a tiny harvest from the columbus, with a second one looking to be even better than that. The Cascade has grown the most but put out the least burs, only 2 hops are on the bine...the mystery hop is actually growing quite well and is putting out a lot of burs recently, might get a decent harvest from it. Id say this experiment has gone fairly well, and I have high hopes for thw summers to come...here's a few pics.

Ok so I figured I would continue this thread for the 2013 growing season. This year I added one more variety, centennial, and I also dug up one of the crowns out of the cascade barrel and planted it in the yard since I planted two in there last year and they both did very well, I didn't want them to crowd each other...Here are a few pics of the setup for year two.

Nice work! I'm in Columbus GA and have been thinking of planting hops this year. Where is a good source for rhizomes?

Last year I ordered from northern brewer, but this year I ordered from Arrowhead Hops, they give you a rhizome twice the size for half the price, straight from the source....so I'd go with them if I were you.

Just sub'd to this! Im in south Ga. (tifton) My main goal is IPA's. Ant sugestions on what hops I should order? Also, has anyone grown these horizontal? I have a privacy fence that would be perfict to run them down the leingth of the fence.
thanks
spooky

I actually kinda moved this thread over to https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f92/apartment-container-growing-back-deck-388816/ , not many people care about "Georgia Hops", I fugured maybe more people might care about "container hops"

I mostly brew IPA's too. I love Columbus and Cascade, both of which are very tolerable variety's so I dont think you can go wrong with them. You might also want to consider chinook.

I've seen ppl grow them horizontally, or nearly horizontally with mostly success, just seems it takes a little more effort in training the bines every few days.

MrSpooky said:

Just sub'd to this! Im in south Ga. (tifton) My main goal is IPA's. Ant sugestions on what hops I should order? Also, has anyone grown these horizontal? I have a privacy fence that would be perfict to run them down the leingth of the fence.
thanks
spooky

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I grow mine mostly horizontally is a real pain to harvest them.( it like picking blackberries) Other than that they have done me really well. I have gotten more than 3lbs for the last 2 years.