first time grower

I have a few newbee grower questions. Two weeks ago I bought nine rimzones from freshops 3 cascade 3 fuggles and 3 columbus.I live in ne ohio and its still getting down to 20 degrees at night.the rimzones are in my lager freezer set at 55 deg with a moist paper towel.I notice the columbus have gotten all covered with hard white dots or bumps.also all of them have many shoots ,to the point there coming out of the bag
Are these bumps mold?
How long can I leave them in the bags?
When can I plant them?
I'm getting a little nervous any imput would be great

You must live in a warm part of NEO. It was 10F when I went to bed Monday night. Do you have spots prepared for them in the garden? The soil temps are warming up and within the next week and that's mostly what counts. Once planted, they most likely won't begin to pop up for a couple weeks so you'll be fine. Sometimes they get some mold on them while in storage but from what I've seen it's just an 'incidental' type of mold and not damaging to the rhizomes themselves.

Yes I do have a spot picked out and ready to go but you don't think its too early?? Its snowing right now.

The bump are most likely root buds. I would wait until there is ground is soft enough to dig and the danger of frost is over. I planted mine in the ground three years ago and got frost, my plants didn't die. Hops are really hardy. You just need to work enough of the ground to get it nice and loose. I added organic compost and had hops everywhere when I planted mine. I hope I can get a good yield of tettenanger this year, it is slow but steady grower. My nugget is insane and the cascade should go bonkers this year.

doug1395 said:

Yes I do have a spot picked out and ready to go but you don't think its too early?? Its snowing right now.

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Look at it this way, when you get rhizomes you're usually instructed to keep them refrigerated until you can plant them. At this point, the soil temp is probably close to the temp of your refrigerator (I haven't checked the actual soil temp but you can see the crowns starting to push - so that tells me that it's warm enough to encourage some growth). Sure the surface inch or two may be cooler due to the cold blast we had this week but that will thaw as quick as it came. As long as it's not too muddy where you're gonna plant them, I see no problem to stick them in the ground. It's not like they're gonna be a foot tall in a week. The buds may start to slowly push up but at the same time they are trying really hard to get some roots going to help sustain growth this summer so energy is being expended in two directions at this point. Year two and onward, they already have roots so most all the juice is directed toward top growth. You can keep them in the fridge for a while longer or if we get a break in the weather go for it. Either way I'm sure you'll be successful. Happy Hoppin'!

I had the same problem last year. I planted them in buckets and kept them in the garage. Once they broke through the dirt I would open the door during the day to let the sun warm them then close it at night. Transplanted when the temps were good outside.

Ok thanks for the help.As for now I going to put them in pots in the bacement and try to hold off planting them for awile.Maybe take them outside on Sunday it is going up to 50deg