Mixing Different Soils

I'm about to plant my Cascade & Centennial tomorrow and am planning on blending in peat moss and composted manure into my soil. Is there a ratio of ground soil to manure & peat moss I should be concerned with? I don't want to overfertilize I guess and ruin my plants.

Sorry for the n00bish question. Really excited about getting these in the ground tomorrow though...

Cheers!

That's going to be a really dense, compact soil especially if you pack it too deep. I suggest you look into lightening things up a bit with sawdust, pine needles, bark or other organic mulches to promote more vigorous root growth. There are tons of threads on suggested soil mixes on this site via a simple search. You also can't really overfertilize with composted organic manure with a nice blend of other composted materials, but I wouldn't lay down straight up fresh manure. And peat moss is a potting mix, not a fertilizer. Good luck with your hops.

Our local gardening expert told me: 1/4 peat, 1/4 manure, 1/4 formiculite, 1/4 soil. I did more like 1/4 peat, 1/8 formiculite, 1/4 manure, 3/8 soil. You can't over do manure. It's like .5 nitrogen.

I used some homemade compost, some composted manure, composted organic peat (its the peat moss not in the compressed rectangle but in 40lb bag with soil), tilled them up, and made mounds out of them. Also had some old mulch as well.

Will show you some pics later. Come see them sometime if you want

Great! I've read a lot about what people have put in but not ratio-wise.

Glad I didn't pack them in too tight with the above 3 mix I was considering. Formiculite is the stuff that keeps it from getting too dense then I assume...

I do have some old grain that has been mixed into soil next to my shed. Wonder if that'd be good to use, should be light as the husks are still visible.

mbobhat said:

Will show you some pics later.

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I'd like to see this. You seem to have a good soil mixture.

Hello from Greenfield! Love to see some pics of your setup man, post away! I've been trying to wait for these frost threats to go away but the more I read, the more i'm realizing how tough these plants are.

Last night I covered them with boxes, and buried a few with mulch. The centennials and the Sterling are the biggest right now, with the Golding not far behind. I got some Hallertau also, but the cuttings were smaller.

Pics show where the SWMBO gave me the go ahead and plant in the back of the garden. I found a 8ft telephone pole for free off craigslist, the other is a 6 by 6 post. I plan on drilling down the middle and adding an 8ft stair railing from menards to get more height, and then stringing up some coir string.

I'd say in a month and a half they are about a foot tall.

You can kinda see 4 mounds, about 3ft or so in diameter and about 2.5 ft tall. I planted two cuttings on each side of the hill opposite each other, and spaced the hills apart by about 5 ft from center.

Well I ended up planting today. Used about 1/4 of each soil, comp. manure, peat moss, and vermiculite. Topped with mulch but I didn't cover where the rhizomes were fearing the mulch would suppress growth.





The hills were hills to begin with until I mulched around them. The area doesn't ever have standing water so i'm not too concerned....

Yea my yard where I planted is a low spot. Your spot looks sunny and as good as any! Are you gonna train yours up the house?

That is complete south side sun there. It gets at least 10 if not 12 hrs sun.

Well i'm kind of torn. The wood below the gutters is 9ft and they are first year plants. I may eyelet the wood and let em go 9ft or buy some galvanized top rail.

One cascade rhizome had no shoots so i'm a bit worried but we'll see.

How long from planting until yours began coming out of the ground?

I planted them March 19th, so its been less than a month. I think the rain and awesome weather we had before now contributed though.

My thought is, a month and you should be good with sprouts, even on your cascade. Since they are developing roots now.

We have pretty good Phosphorus in the soil, but if you have a fireplace, you may wanna throw some wood ash on top of them to help out the roots even more.

Patience is a virtue, at least that's what somebody told me

I ordered a booklet on hops if you wanna do some light reading to pass the time. PM me if ya want the info

Great thread!!! I'm getting ready to plant 8 rhizomes myself and have been searching for proper planting mix ratios. Great information guys!

I am thinking 1/3 to 1/2 native, less than 1/4 manure, 1/3 vermiculite/ perlite/ peat mix.

And yes you can over apply manure! It is hot and can burn. It's loaded with salt. N is not the issue. IMO the benefits of manure are the organics and not the nutrients.

I used a 40lb bag of composted manure per hill but blended with equal amounts of peat moss, vermiculite, and local soil.

We shall see....

badbrew said:

And yes you can over apply manure! It is hot and can burn. It's loaded with salt. N is not the issue. IMO the benefits of manure are the organics and not the nutrients.

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Ok. Cattle compost salt content varies quite a bit from farm to farm. Specially if it came from a herd that had salt licks. So to be on the safe side never go beyond 50% composted cow manure as per most commercial suppliers recommendations. Even though a local agriculturalists told me you can't over do it. He as well as I assume not to use 75-100% compost manure. Although with the a mineral test it is possible.

You shouldn't go beyond 20% manure in a mix. The particle size is very small which makes it far too dense. It isn't a matter of burning... You're simply left with a soil that retains way too much moisture. And yes, the plant suffers from a dense soil with "Too Much" moisture.

Any ideas on when to start using fish emulsion? I've heard it's great stuff for hops!


Towards the bottom of this website:

http://gowanusbrewery.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/notes-on-growing-hops/

If growing organically, you can use fish fertilizer from the start. Just read the bottle instructions for the dilution rate depending on the stage of the plant.

Get the hydrolyzed version close to any sort of 3-1-2 (N-P-K) ratio. Hydrolyzed fish fert involves a better, cleaner, purer process that works better, but doesn't smell as bad. You may need something additional for a potassium boost upon flowering (yes potassium, not phosphorous). Less N is more efficient upon flowering that more P. Extra K helps the plant adjust to bear more weight upon flowering.

http://www.planetnatural.com/site/xdpy/kb/fish-fertilizer/
http://www.gegardensupply.com/fish-fertilizer.html