Growing Hops in Pots

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MurderMittenBrewing

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I live in an apartment so I can't plant hops in the ground, but I have 5 plants (Mt. Hood, Centennial, Nugget, Perle, and Cascade) growing on my deck in 4 gallon buckets. They're quite healthy looking and the first three, which were planted a couple of months before the Cascade and the Perle, have had buds for about 3 weeks.

I'm wondering how long I can keep the plants in pots before they get rootbound and need to be transplanted. Any thoughts? Thanks!
 
I've hear that the third year you need to break them up or put them in the ground
 
In 4 gallon buckets? They could already be root bound! Mine are in 25 gallon buckets and I believe they will be root bound by the end of the year, if not earlier.
 
What's the best thing to do if I have to keep them in pots for another year or two? I mean, I could put them into larger pots but that would be expensive (5 wine barrels and the dirt to go in them!)

Will they be ok in the 4 gallon buckets, or should I split them? Thanks!
 
I'd split them at the very least but 4 gal pots are pretty small I would try to get something bigger than that as well. I'm gonna try and find someplace for mine other then pots next yr, like my buddy's backyard.
 
I use 20G plastic pots. They are good for the first year, OK for the second year. I can tell that for year 3, I'll have to dig up my rhizome and cut some off.

My second year fuggles are at the top of my 18' pole and bursting with the little spiky baby cones. I probably had 20+ shoots at the beginning of the season and thinned it out to 8.
 
What's the best thing to do if I have to keep them in pots for another year or two? I mean, I could put them into larger pots but that would be expensive (5 wine barrels and the dirt to go in them!)

Will they be ok in the 4 gallon buckets, or should I split them? Thanks!

Go to the local nursery and see if they are willing to sell you their plastic pots that they put trees and shrubs in. I was able to score a couple 25 gallon ones for $3 a piece. They also had 50 gallon ones but were not willing to sell them to me :( They were massive, too. I could probably curl up in one!

In addition, the soil isn't too expensive. $8 for 2 cu. ft. maybe? It took 2-3 of those to fill my pots.
 
Other things to think about when growing in pots. You need to limit the plant to what the amount of soil, water, and nutrients can support. Don't just let the thing grow. I trimmed mine to the 3 most vigorous shoots out of about 8 I had early then let a 4th grow about 1.5 months later to try and get a little bit of a late harvest, I liquid fertilize every 2 weeks, water every day since pots dry out so much faster. So far this yr I have 1 oz of fuggles dry, 1 more oz drying, about 3-4 oz on my Cascade and 1 oz on the Mt Hood almost ready to pick. Those late vines are starting to put out spurs now like I hoped so I'm thinking maybe an extra 1/4-3/4 oz late season if all works out. If I have to stay with pots again next yr I will pull the whole root mass out and trim it down probably to not much more than a crown like you can buy online and repot that. It might hurt production slightly completely refilling the pot with roots but it will be better than having it become terribly rootbound.
 
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