Hop Farming in the desert

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JDoubleDuBB

Active Member
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I live in Las Vegas which is notorious for having garbage soil so I thought I'd give this a try. Just planted 2 Cascades and 2 Centennials. 21 gallon planters with organic potting soil. 1 rhizome in each. Drippers should be installed soon. I'll keep updating with the progress.
 
Awesome!!! I'm in Cathedral City, CA I planted hops for first time last Thursday, Magnum, Nugget, and Centennial. Within the past hour this came up in my Magnum pot

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I live in Las Vegas which is notorious for having garbage soil so I thought I'd give this a try. Just planted 2 Cascades and 2 Centennials. 21 gallon planters with organic potting soil. 1 rhizome in each. Drippers should be installed soon. I'll keep updating with the progress.

Very cool! What part of town are you in? I'll move my 'blog'ing efforts to this thread if it's all the same.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f92/hop-growing-las-vegas-117445/index4.html#post5160419

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f92/hop-growing-las-vegas-117445/index4.html#post5165808
 


The plan is to put up a lattice along the balcony and against the back wall there, and grow mostly horizontally. I planted two weeks ago, tomorrow. Watered a ton for the first few days then I dialed it back a little bit when sprouts popped up. It's my first year so I'm not expecting huge growth, if they survive the heat. Adding mulch made a significant difference on the top level moisture retention. Pretty smooth so far, it's supposed to crack 100 next week.



 
Average day time highs in the mid-high 90s. Cracked 100 a couple times in the last week. Everything still looking great, haven't seen any heat related stress. Next stop, 110.

The plant in the larger planter seemed to stall for a few days, but both plants are doing well.



First year, planted 3 weeks ago, tomorrow.
 
I think it was Kinnison who once said;

"...YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A F*CKING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS OUT HERE! NOTHING'S GONNA GROW OUT HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS IS SAND. KNOW WHAT IT'S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? IT'S GONNA BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A F*CKING DESERT! "

What you Need is a U-Haul. :D
 
So this is my first year trying to grow hops my Magnum looked good a week ago don't know what happened to it but it seems to be dying I'm gonna wait it out and see what happens my Centennial's have not sprouted yet. Although with my misfortune on those here is an update of my Nugget

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HHHMMM seems to not be posting pic. i'll try again later
 
Growth is going good. All 4 pots have taken off rather well. It's already been over 100 degrees and they're still doing good.



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Righteous, basically the complete opposite end of town from me.

A little over a month in, still doing well. I'll probably start a very mild fertilizer in the next week or two. Stoked I was able to get approval from the HOA to put this lattice up. It's likely to get up into the 100s pretty much every day from now until September.

 
Could be a record-breaking few days out here in Vegas....



Neither of my plants is doing great at this point. Pretty much all the leaves that get more than about 4 hours of direct sunlight end up brown and crunchy. But the parts that are in the shade the majority of the day are still doing just fine. I have everything positioned to maximize the sun exposure (since they are on an east facing balcony), but I might actually be better off pull everything back a little bit. Either way, even if I don't get any harvest this year, I'm confident that I will have a couple nice root crowns and a lot more experience going into next year. Pics to follow....
 
give them some shade , and don't forget fry an egg on the sidewalk fer kicks...

it's a little warm here too.
 
Mine all got pretty hammered in the heat but then came back during the monsoons. I actually got pretty decent growth considering they were first year.



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