Hoppo's Hops Garden

Sure does....thanks! As always, I appreciate all of your advice. My bro doesn't brew beer, but wants a couple of rhizomes for a couple of trellis systems at his new house that the prior owners used for grape vines. He transplanted those at my dad's house and wants to plant a couple of hop vines. He has perfect sandy soil and full sun, so his garden always kicks a$$. Not that I will need any more hops than I have at home, but I will go down in the early fall to harvest and have a few beers with him.He has a buddy that brews, so we will likely pass them on to him.

OK....the 2013 hops growing season is off to a wicked start. Atlhough all 8 of my vines are only 2nd year, I'm shocked at the number of bines per crown already! Here's an update:

Chinooks x 2 = around 25 bines per crown
Cascades x 2 = around 20 bines per crown
Glacier = around 20 bines
Hallertau = around 15 bines
Columbus = around 15 bines
Centennial = around 10 bines

Despite being their first year last season I was rewarded with production from the Chinooks, Cascades, and the Columbus.

Here are a few pics of a few of the vines. I want to take a poll, because I'm getting mixed signals on how to proceed. Some people prefer to run multiple climbing lines per crown and allow 2-3 bines to climb each line. Others recommend choosing 2 or 3 of the strongest looking bines as the climbers and trimming ALL of the rest of the bines down to the ground to allow the crowns root system to focus all of it's attention and nutrients to just a few climbers. I would have room to run another line or two for each crown, but am afraid if I add multiple climbing lines, I'm going to run into a mess at the top with them all balling up together.

I want to know from as many people as possible what method they prefer and what has produced the best yield. I plan on spending a few hours on my hops garden this weekend, building planter boxes around each crown to keep them somewhat contained, running additional climbing lines, trimming the surrounding trees to maximize sunlight, and weeding/mulching the garden. Just want to know if I should go with fewer bines on 1 line and trim the rest back or multiple climbing lines utilizing a majority of the bines.

A couple of more factors to consider is that they receive direct sunlight for the first 1/2 of the day and again for a couple of hours in the evening, so they are not in full sun all day. I do have irrigation to them, so they receive plenty of water throughout the growing season. The soil is well draining loamy sand soil. Not sure if these factors play a roll.

As always, I appreciate any and all feedback from those that have much more experience with this than myself!

Here are a few pics.

That looks awesome! I don't have enough experience to tell you what to do with them. Seems as though you are dealing with a problem some people wish they had. Your plants are impressive. Good luck

Excuse the delay but it's Spring and lots of stuff going on. Finally remembered to get batteries for the camera. As home growers, I feel we can produce healthier plants than those that get manhandled by equipment/practices that commercial growers use and have proved it to myself by harvesting close to 8 pounds from this plant a few years ago. At that point I ran strings to 5 poles and it was a great growing season. Things have changed and I only have room for 3 poles to run off of this crown but the results are just about as good. Training lines are directed to three poles, the third one is out of the picture but you can probably get the idea. They're actually onto the poles at this point since the picture's been taken. Non-commercialy grown plants are vigorous enough to support many more vines than those grown under commercial conditions and still produce really good yields. 5 or 6 vines are trained to each pole and in a good year, each pole can produce at least 2 pounds of dried hops. And that's just picking the cream of the crop. My problem is finding room to dry them all. The advantage of this system is that you can untie the pole from the support without cutting the vines and lay it down to leisurely pick from the ground. When you're done picking you can tie the pole back up to the support and let it do it's thing until the frost kills them back. In the meantime, all the additional carbohydrates that the foliage produces after harvest is sent back down into the crown to make for a stronger plant for next year. The only drawback is that the crowns become so vigorous that you have to do some severe pruning next Spring or you'll have a monster to deal with. It's worked for me for some years now so that's all I got. Hop to it!

Nice Work! I lowered down my cable trellis system and added additional climbing lines. The 2 Chinooks and 2 Cascades are only in their second year, but look very healthy. I added two additional climbing lines per crown this year. For each of the other 4 crowns (Centennial, Columbus, Glacier, & Hallertau), I added 1 additional climbing line to each. I went through each one and selected the healthiest looking bines to train on the lines. At this point, I am training 3 bines per climbing line and plucked the rest of the bines off of the crown. I'll post some pics later today to show you what I have going. I have been so busy with opening another new practice that my hops garded otherwise, looks like crap. I need to do some serious weeding and get some mulch in the garden. Not enough hours in the day.

Looking great Hoppo! Keep us updated on the growth. Can't wait to see the progress this season.

Once mine are tall enough to start climbing i'll take some before and after shots of the the trimmed down plant as well.

I also need to get to weeding the garden. Mine was all grown over with grass and weeds and I never really cleaned it out well before planting my hops. Doh! Lesson learned there.

I know, it's a lot of work keeping up with it. I do a pretty good job keeping them weeded around the crowns, but between the vines it's starting to look like a jungle. A while back Ted gave me some advice and told me to build planter boxes with pressure treated 2x12's and sink them into the croung around each crown to keep the root systems contained. I may try to tackle this project once I get some free time. I plan on weeding the entire area, putting down several layers of landscape fabric between the crowns and putting 4" to 6" of mulch over the entire area to keep the weeds down. I'll post some updated pics. this afternoon after I run home to mow the lawn. We are supposed to get some afternoon storms, so mowing is my top priority before the storms hit.

P.S. Ted sent my a link to the latest episode of Chop and Brew, which I will try to watch later this evening. Congrats on your continued fame!

Ha! Thanks, hope you enjoy the episode. Its a great time hanging with friends talking beer, hops and brewing.

I used buried 2x12 boxes at my previous house and they worked great, until that 4 year old Cascade decided to escape. She was and is a beast. In my current garden I doubled up some land scaling plastic and buried it to section off my 8 varieties. I buried it around 16" down. So as long as I stay on top of them I don't expect them to reach each other. Now them escaping the garden to the outside, well I fully expect to see that soon if I can't keep the rhizomes cut back.

We've had 4 or so days straight rain here so i'm expecting huge growth once the sun finally comes out tomorrow. Can't wait!

Here are a few pics of the updated trellis system. Now that my sprinkler system is up and running, they seem to be growing by leaps and bounds. The Chinooks are beasts and should take the lead in height within the next day or two. They are currently around 6 to 7 ft. The Glacier is leading the way at this point at about 10 ft., but the bines are no where as thick, nor the vegetation as lush as on the Chinooks. The Cascades are also doing really well, with nice diameter bines and approaching 6 ft. The Hallertau is doing better than expected, also at about 6 ft., but not as lush as the others. The Columbus is thick as hell, but not really climbing well at this point. It made it up a good 15 ft. last year and produced, so I'm sure it will catch up soon. My biggest diappointment this year and last has been the Centennial. I may have to move it to a spot where it gets better sunight and isn't positions as close to the base of the cherry tree.

Here are a few more pics from different angles. Finally wrapped up all of my lawn work for the day, so now I'm heading down to basement to rack a couple of lagers over into carboys for secondary fermentation and lagering. I kegged an Orange Summer Wheat Ale and a Monster IPA this weekend. The lagers are a Rye Maibock and my version of NB's World Wide Lager. After the holiday weekend, I'm going to knock out another batch in preparation of summer parties. I stock piled some Amarillo for my Wheat IPA. Can't wait to see what this year holds in the way of hop production.

That looks GREAT man!!! I don't know why, but I'm liking that hell0-yellow rope!
My centennials (the mother plant to yours) have the same problem - and mine get the same amount of sun and water as the rest. So, it could just be the variety itself, nothing you're doing wrong.

Thanks man! I asked my wife to stop and get me rope last week and that's what she came home with, so I went with it. I'm sure my neighbors are loving me about now. I'm trying to create my own version of the Green Monster to block them out when they are setting on their back deck. Luckily, my house sits about 400 ft back, so the only time I see the back of their house is when I go out the front door (rarely) or when mowing. They are very nice people, but the original owner cut down ALL of the mature trees when he cleared the lot for their house. I've since planted a few blue spruce and my hops vines to block their house from my view. We spend 99% of our time in our back yard, so it's not a big deal.

I'll keep working with the Centennial to see if I can get it to mature. Eventhough your's lags behind the others as well, I still think that it is planted too close to the base of the cherry tree. Someday, when I'm feel really ambitious, I'll create a huge raised bed on the north side of my property in the back yard with a big trellis system, so that they get full sun. For now, however, I have a full plate with my newest practice, so I don't have time this season. I will however sink some 2x12" framed planter boxes into the ground around each of them to try to keep them contained. To be honest with you, I'm scared to death of what those Chinooks are going to turn into. If my dog or kids go missing, I'll know where to look.

I have a noob question. Am I simply looking for shoots just starting to come out of the ground away from the main crown to find rhizomes or do you dig for them? I carefully started digging around several of the crowns and there are huge roots going out in all directions, but don't seem to have any shoots coming off of them. I feel like an idiot, but how do I find the rhizomes?

You might not have much for rhizomes on your 2nd year. 3 and up, for sure.

Gently dig around the crown (360 degrees) like you were trying to find the spokes of a bike-wheel buried 3-6" below the surface. If you find rhizomes, they will have little white nubs (eyes). Follow them back to as close to the crown as you can and snip them off with a sharp tool. I use a tin snips. The plants that grew the biggest last year are the most likely to have rhizome action this year.

Yeah, that's what I did. I gently went around a couple of the bigger ones and a few inches under the surface found massive root structures out in all directions, but didn't see any eyes, but was afraid of uncovering too much of the root system. I'll give another peak with the chinooks and cascades tomorrow. I'm heading down to visit my parents this weekend and my bro wants a rhizome or two to plant at the base of a trellis system that the prior owners of his house built.

Quick question to you and Paul. What varieties do you guys have going right now? Not that I need any more work, but next season I may add to my variety and was wondering if you guys would be interested in a rhizome swap. Hopefully next season, I could provide you guys with rhizomes for columbus, glacier, and hallertau. Obviously, you guys have chinooks and cascades coming out of your ears, but that's all I would have to offer. What do you say?

Hoppopotomus said:

Yeah, that's what I did. I gently went around a couple of the bigger ones and a few inches under the surface found massive root structures out in all directions, but didn't see any eyes, but was afraid of uncovering too much of the root system. I'll give another peak with the chinooks and cascades tomorrow. I'm heading down to visit my parents this weekend and my bro wants a rhizome or two to plant at the base of a trellis system that the prior owners of his house built.

Quick question to you and Paul. What varieties do you guys have going right now? Not that I need any more work, but next season I may add to my variety and was wondering if you guys would be interested in a rhizome swap. Hopefully next season, I could provide you guys with rhizomes for columbus, glacier, and hallertau. Obviously, you guys have chinooks and cascades coming out of your ears, but that's all I would have to offer. What do you say?

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I have Cascade, Columbus, Chinook, Fuggle, Nugget, Zeus, and mystery plant and a first year Magnum in my garden currently. I wouldn't mind adding a Willamette at some point. Or a Simcoe or Amarillo rhizome I'm tempted to just plant more Centennials, Chinook, and Columbus around my yard. Love me some C hops!

I had 6 plants my first year, and went up to 13 plants for my 2nd year. Then down to 6 again for my 3rd year (and this year) because that's all I can keep up with. With as busy as you are, I would wait until year 3 and add incrementally as you think you'll have time. the amount of hops you will get will easily double every year and top out around the 3rd or 4th year.
(1 count) Chinook, Magnum and Cascade
(2 count) Centennial (one on the fence, one on the house)
and a new Centennial this year in the place of one of my Cascades.
mmmmmm Centennial.

Seems that Centennial is a finicky grower, I've been told that by a couple of people that have been growing hops for years, and my 2nd year Centennial plant is pretty lackluster. It probably hasn't even reached 6" tall yet, and has maybe 5 shoots. It gets full sun for about 10 straight hours & is in some pretty great soil, mostly Horse Manure. So I think no matter what you do it will always be a slacker. Although... I did re-plant everything this year, so it is possible that it might be in a little bit of shock. My Chinook plant didn't accept the replanting well.

Hey guys.....a quick update. I got sick and tired of battling the weeds in my hop garden, so I installed some Preen landscaping fabric in the area. Sometime in the next week or two, I will have mulch delivered for all of my landscaping.......tyically 30 to 35 yards. I have decided to stop battling the weeds in most of my perimeter beds so I purchased four rolls of 4 ft x 220 lineal ft. Preen landscape fabric. I decided that I might as well do the hop garden while I was at it. I'll wait until next spring to build the planter boxes, because I am still undecided if the hop garden is staying put or moving to the back yard to full sun.

My glacier and both chinooks have found their way to the top of the climbing ropes......18 ft. 'ish. The hallertau and both cascades are well on their way as well, currently at 15 ft. The columbus is somewhere between 10 and 12 ft. and the centennial is lagging behind at about 8 ft......but better than last year. I'm not worried about the columbus, because last season it produced a fair amount of cones for a first year and made it most of the way up the rope, but I don't have high hopes for the cent. I got sick of digging around for rhizomes, so I stopped at Bordines (a local nursery) and bought my brother a centennial hop plant. With his soil and growing conditions, I'm sure he will have better luck than me with the centennial, so I may just end up with some cones from him.

Looks great man

Thanks. Should look much better once I get all of the mulch spread over the area. I planned on starting that process this weekend, but between kids soccer games, baseball games, etc., I'll probably have to put it off until the following week.

Hey Guys,

Sorry it has been a while, but here are some pics this a.m. of ye ole hops garden. Sorry about the crappy pic quality. Just a quick update, these vines have taken an absolute beating this year with all of the heavy winds and monsoon rains. Despite the abuse, they are producing well. The chinook and cascades are loaded with cones and should have a fairly decent yield for their second year. The centennial is the one that I had the least amount of hope for, but it finally made it to the top along with the rest and is producing what looks to be maybe 2 to 3 oz. of dried cones when all is said and done. I'm pleased with the glacier and columbus as well, both with a moderate amount of cones and a lot of burrs that haven't flowered. My hallertau was the height leader out of the gates, but is only producing maybe 100 or so very small cones.

I have decided that this current trellis system isn't ideal at all. Although it was designed to allow plenty of sway with the trees, the movement in the climbing ropes ripped out several of my largest bines throughout the season. Although they are producing well, I can't help but think of the production these guys would yield if they were in full sun, hadnt' taken a beating, and if I was tending to them as closely as I should. I plan on building an elevated bed on the nothern edge of my back yard, in full sun. My wife bought a composter a while back, so I am stock piling compost to enrich the soil when I build it in the spring. A quick question, when is the idea time to transplant the crowns?

Amazing!!

"A quick question, when is the idea time to transplant the crowns?"

Any time they're not actively growing. I got in a situation about 14 years ago where I had to move one in the Fall or lose it so I dug a shallow hole, threw it in and piled a few inches of compost over it for the Winter. The following Spring when I went to dig it up and plant it in a prepared spot, I was amazed at how much root growth had occurred over the Winter.

After seeing that, any time I have to move a crown I do it in the Fall. One of the big benefits of doing it then (as opposed to Spring) is that you can generally prepare it's new home without the soil being cold and wet which can create a bunch of compaction. The other big benefit is that once it's in it's new location, it will have a great head start on getting rooted as this will occur all through the Fall until the soil freezes. I'd suggest to get digging and move them once they die back in a few months.

Thanks B-Hoppy! Great information to know. I think that I will follow your advice and transplant them this fall, so that they have a head start for spring.

I started to harvest my hops yesterday and got about 1/3 of the way through. The Centennial yielded about one small easter bucket, the Columbus 2 medium sand buckets, and the 2 Cascades 3 larger sand buckets. I had better hopes for the Cascades, but the wind storms earlier in the season beat the hell out of them and ripped several of the largest bines out of the ground. No idea of dry weight at this point, but they are drying right now in the brewery and I'll update when ready. I still have 4 vines to go. The Glacier produced similar in quantity to the Columbus, and the Hallertau similar to the Centennial. The 2 Chinooks on the other had will out produce all of the other 6 plants combined! Atlhought they did take a beating as well in the wind storms, it didn't slow down their production whatsoever and they thrived this season. Here is the first 1/3 of the harvest.

Looks great, man! Those look like the buckets that I have around my house too. "KIDS! go get me all the buckets you can find..." HAHAH
How are they smelling?

My brewery smells awesome right now! By far, the most aromatic are the columbus, but they all smell great. My 9 y/o daughter helped me with the first phase of the harvest, so she was the one making the bucket runs for me. I really need to buy a dozen 5 gallon Homer Buckets, because evertime I need a damn bucket, I either can't find one or I ruined one by not cleaning it out after tiling. Thanks for the email pics of your initial harvest.....you definitely have your hands more full than I do man! Tomorrow I need to get to the Hallertaus, Glaciers, and the dreaded Chinooks.

I've been meaning to post some final pics. I finished the 2nd half of the hop harvest last weekend by picking the hallertau, glacier, and 2 chinooks. As expected, the 2 chinooks yielded more than all 6 of the other plants combined. I did jump the gun on the glacier, which could have benefited from another week or two. The cones were plentiful, but really small compared to the rest and still pretty green and dense. There was a decent amouint of lupulin, so I rolled with it, as I didn't want the harvest to extend into the following week or so. The cones on the chinooks were huge, loaded with lupulin, and perfectly ready for harvest. The hallertau sucked....worst yield of the bunch.

Here are a few pics.....the first one was from the first harvest dried (cascade, centennial, and columbus). The second is from the second harvest mentioned above. The third is the vacuum sealer that we asked for last xmas and finally got a chance to use. The final pic is the vacuumed sealed end product.....mostly 4 oz. packaging, except for the ones that only produced a couple of ounces....hallertau/centennial. Finally tally was 40.6 oz or 2 1/2lbs dry wt.

Damn... That is from just 2nd year plants?! Oh how i envy you right now! I got barely .5 oz of wet hops so far... but that is just a first year plant.

Not at all a bad yield, congratulations! Now it's time to brew with them!!! Helpful hint - if you can't add extra water to make up for the volume loss you will have due to the leaves holding liquid, sanitize a strainer bag and line a pail. Dump (or scoop) everything into the strainer bag, wring it out (oven mitts under trash bags work) and then dump the pail into your fermenter.

Yaksha808 said:

Damn... That is from just 2nd year plants?! Oh how i envy you right now! I got barely .5 oz of wet hops so far... but that is just a first year plant.

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Yeah, but keep in mind I have 8 plants in total, so although it was a decent yield, it wasn't great. The hallertaue and centennial both produced only a couple of ounces, which was pi$$ poor IMO. If my vines hadn't have taken such a beating with storm damage, and if they all would have produced like the cascades and chinooks, I would have really had my hands full.

Gridlocked said:

Not at all a bad yield, congratulations! Now it's time to brew with them!!! Helpful hint - if you can't add extra water to make up for the volume loss you will have due to the leaves holding liquid, sanitize a strainer bag and line a pail. Dump (or scoop) everything into the strainer bag, wring it out (oven mitts under trash bags work) and then dump the pail into your fermenter.

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Thanks Ted. I probably use more leaf hops than pelletized from my HBS, so I usually bump up the production volume to offset the absorbtion loss. There's nothing I hate more than not being able to completely fill a 5 gallon keg to the top, so I typically adjust my recipes to 6 gallon batches, especially if a high volume of hops is used or if I'm dry hopping. In my new system, I think I am going to use a bazooka tube in the BK, along with a hop sack to filter out the hop leafs. I'll definitely take your advice and wring out the sack when I'm done.

I've been spending a lot of time over the past few days learning more about water chemistry. Up until recently I have always used filtered water from Meijer, add some gypsum and brew. I never checked mash PH or adjusted anything with the water due to ignorance, but it always turned out good. My last 4 or 5 batches, I used the water from my brewery and had some off flavors that I have never experienced before. I am on a well and didn't want to use softened water, so I had my plumber tap into the pre-softener water line to feed the faucet over my HLT. I had him install a dual canister filter with a sediment filter in the first canister and a carbon filter in the second. I thought, what the hell, filtered hard water should be good for brewing....right? Now I am learning that my water is likely too high in total alkalinity, which is not good, especially for ligher colored beers.....not enough acidity in the mash to drop the PH down into a the ideal range. I have always had a hard time getting the total alkalinity down in my hot tub, so now I am finally making the connection.

If I'm going to use the water in my brewery, I have to understand water chemistry more, so I have been reading a lot on the brew science thread and have watched BobbyM's water chemistry series, as well as Palmer's NB lecture. I think I have to bite the bullet and send some water out to Ward Labs for testing. I have been picking the brains of some very brilliant HBT members as well (AJ & -TH-), so once I get the report back they are going to let me know if the water is even able to be adjusted. Sucks!!!! I really don't want to have to install a reverse osmosis system in my brewery and I sure as hell don't want to have to lug 15 to 20 gallons of water down to my basement evertime I want to brew. What a PITA!

My centennial loved life this year more than it ever has - after I ran strings 20' into the air - and let it climb rather than stuffing it down along the fence.
But, even at that, it doesn't produce as much as the Cascade OR the Chinook.

Gridlocked said:

My centennial loved life this year more than it ever has - after I ran strings 20' into the air - and let it climb rather than stuffing it down along the fence.
But, even at that, it doesn't produce as much as the Cascade OR the Chinook.

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Any idea how many ounces you got dried off of the cent? I think I was at something like 2.4 oz. I was hoping for much, much more because it is a major staple in many of my recipes. Oh well, hopefully in year 3 she'll stop being shy and start producing.