Growing Hops on an Apartment Balcony

As the title says, I'd like to grow hops in/around an apartment balcony. I have a decent sized third floor uncovered patio that gets good sunlight. I have a few questions.

Is this crazy?
I have read you need at least 10 vertical feet of growing space. This should be feasible, but if possible I'd like to have a bit less. I've heard you can wrap twine clockwise around three supports and have the vines grow around the twine. Is this feasible?
I am moving on June 1. I have a patio at both my new and current apartments with similar characteristics. Could I wait til June to start growing or is that going to be too late in the season?
How much soil (how big of a planter) do I need for a solid root system? Is shallow and long better than a deeper pot with a smaller footprint?

I'm doing the same! This is not my set-up but I'm doing something very similar to it








EDIT: Speaking of which, first one just broke ground. I'll post the trellis system when it's all set up.

How has your hops growing on the apartment balcony been? I am in the same situation, looking into planting some Cascade hops.

If one of them sounds interesting to you, you could go for dwarf varieties that don't require the same level of growing height. In the second year you would still be winding the twine around supports at a lower angle, but it wouldn't get out of control, and it'd be a gorgeous thing to have on your balcony. For the first year, you could let all the bines grow out (many short vertical twines would do if it was a dwarf variety) which would limit the maximum height as energy would be shared between them, but the plant would get tons of energy from all the leaves, and so it would be stronger and more geared towards a bigger harvest the following year.

A very large container is required; I've heard that 55 gallons is recommended for a comparable yield, but don't worry about it too much and just get something big (If you are lucky you could find yourself a barrel at a good price, but a big plastic storage box or gardening bucket could do). From what I've read from others growing hops in containers, I gather that while the plant likes to send out a good number of shallow roots, if you plant it in a deep container, it will send its roots right through it... While I haven't grown hops in containers, my experience in growing in large containers is that it is very easy for a deep container to seem dry on the top and actually be wet or even waterlogged on the bottom; so while you want something 2 or 3 feet deep plus, i'd favour width over height where the same volume is concerned.

Drainage can be a real issue for very large containers, and this is critical for hops, so I recommend using perlite for 1/3 of the soil volume (so much lighter than compost, soil or sharp sand and will provide aeration, retention and drainage), and making many big drainage holes in the bottom of the pot and covering them with coffee filters to keep the soil in.

I don't know your climate but June is quite late to start; when you get a rhizome you'd be better getting it going as long as the weather is good enough. You can start it in a 1 gallon container and transplant it over; I can get quite late frosts here (last week for example) so when my hops were babies I grew them in doors in a 1 gallon container until late May and then put them in the ground.

Container planted hops will be more susceptible to temperature swings, so look into mulching and frost fleeces if your climate gets into the extremes.