Hop Growers in Southern California

Will be moving to LA (hopefully) by the end of this year, and if so, I'm hoping to get started on a small setup.

Anybody have advice for growing season, planting time, etc. so I can be prepared?

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Plant in mid-march or early april. Full sun. You'll find tons of info in the hops growing section.

Here is a picture of my Centennial from about a week ago. It looks to be about 12 feet long. It is forming cones.

Does the plant stop growing once it forms cones? I have not seen it grow much ever since cones started forming.

Do you water the hop plants more now that the cones are forming or do you water them less? Currently I am watering hops about once every 3 days.

When are cones usually ready for harvest in Southern California?

1st year Cascade. Best of all my plants this year.
Down below, 2nd year Centennial, doing all right, but probably no cones this year...

Here are some pictures of my first year Centennial hops growing out of a pot. It has about 40 cones on it. I can't wait to harvest them and brew with them I am sure when I weigh them that it won't come out to much.

I fertilized them with comfrey that is growing from my yard. I just cut comfrey leaves and lay them in the pot with rocks on top of the leaves to prevent them from being blown away by the wind.

I have no clue if I am over or under-fertilizing, but I figure that comfrey leaves would be a slow release form of fertilizing so I don't worry about it too much.

It might be a little early to ask this question, but when should I expect my second year hops to break dormancy and beginning growing again this season?

Anybody in Southern California have hops that have begun to grow this year yet?

You'll likely see some movement in early April. I find some varieties come up earlier than others (for instance, Cascades tend to be earlier than Chinook for me). I feel like when they start going is a product of how cool things stay in early spring, with soil temperatures raising, and the nighttime lows becoming warmer, as the major influencing factors.

The warm shot of weather we had the last couple weeks didn't get my hops moving but I had a blackberry bush that was confused about what season we were in.

Excellent, I am kinda anxious about my second year Centennials that I started in a pot last year. I hope they survived the winter.

You could take a look-see if you're really nervous. You can identify rhizomes with the new growth buds/tips fairly easily. I'd take that plant out of the pot in the next month or two and divide it into several more rhizomes and plant them, in something larger. More soil volume tends to translate into more vigorous growth and more harvested hops. An eight gallon pot is definitely limiting to even a first year plant, in my opinion. If you're stuck on growing them in containers, see if you can source a 24" or bigger nursery box (like the ones trees and palms tend to be planted in) or a half wine/whiskey barrel makes a good one, too. I find that you have to water hops more in containers but you can control their growing environment better, especially if there's a lot of root competition from mature trees/shrubs, and so on.

I figured that I would need a bigger planter for my hops. The 8 gallon was a just a temporary solution until I could get a bigger planter or find space in the ground.

Is it okay to divide rhizomes from my plant considering that I grew it from a rhizome just last year and this is just the beginning of its second year?

Whether or not to divide it will depend on what you find when you transplant it. Ideally, no, you wouldn't divide a second year plant. But if your goal is to transplant it into a planter, and you want to expand your hop yard, then I would divide it, assuming you have multiple rhizomes. You'll need to cut sections of the crown that have the buds/growth tips--a bare section of root won't generally work. It is amazing how little of a cutting can translate into a new plant; however, the larger the rhizome, the more stored energy there is to get things started in the new growing season. B-Hoppy, I believe, reported that placing these new shoots (the buds/growth tips on the rhizome) just slightly above soil level helped motivate their early growth (as opposed to burying them completely).

Worst case, you could plant your Centennial as is, and then purchase a few new rhizomes to expand the yard. Still, I am willing to bet that you can split what you have in two or three, at least. I've cut dozens of rhizomes out of one wine barrel planter in the past from a plant that was only several seasons old--it's amazing how they spread if they are cared for decently well.

I'm gonna go look for some barrel planters. I like the way they look. I wish I had more room to just put them in the ground, but I'll make due with what I do have access to.

I buried my Centennial rhizome last year with very little dirt. It was extremely shallow. It worked out nicely for me, especially considering that the rhizome I had seem really small.

My 3rd year fuggle has some sprouts but most likely these wont be the primary vine. Some others will sprout and pass these in late march.

My second year chinooks haven't made a move but when I transferred containers there were some buds


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@Hop Hero

If you have time, can you post some pictures?

This was taken this morning


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Hop_Hero said:

View attachment 177435

This was taken this morning


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Jealous. This is the scene in IL



Can't wait for growing season!

@Hop Hero Thanks for the pictures. I can't wait for my plant to start growing.

@Thaymond Do you have hops in the ground right now from previous seasons? Can hops survive having that much snow piled on top of them?

Its good for hops to freeze. It stores energy which results in rapid growth


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Question. Was I supposed to be watering my hops over winter when they were dormant? Because I didn't. And it sure didn't rain at all this winter in San Diego. Thanks

Oh. And I have a couple in barrels and a couple in the ground.

I watered mine a couple times a week. They were in pots so i was worried about them getting dry


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I only watered my hops 3 times all winter long.

Here are some pictures of Cascade rhizomes harvested from raised beds. You can get an idea of how many rhizomes you can have after a few seasons.

Wow, that's a lot of rhizomes. How old were the plant(s)? I wish I still lived in the North County area. I am about a 2 hour drive further north now.

Yeah. It's crazy how much they grow. Those rhizomes were from three plants that were probably four years old or so. The were grown in wine barrels that had the bottoms cut out and then flipped upside down so the wide end is the base (confusing, but you can see two of them in the picture). I have to start over every so often with my in ground plants because the mature trees around the yard will send roots up the planters and compete with the hops. That's one reason that containers have been so successful for me: no root competition and easier to control the soil.

Here is a picture of my Centennial hops taken on 2/25/2014.

Here are pictures of my hops. All of the hops except the Centennial are first year hops that I grow from rhizomes that I got from Cram. The Centennial is a second year that I grew from a rhizome that I got from eBay.

This thing started gaining length really fast but for the last few weeks it's just gotten really bushy. Any one else experience that?

mattcuso said:

This thing started gaining length really fast but for the last few weeks it's just gotten really bushy. Any one else experience that?

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When it shoots out side arms and then the burrs that turn into the cones, it really adds some girth.

Is this normal during this part of the year