growing hops in VA?

[dbhokie]

Just planted my two fuggles about 10 days ago and one's already 6 inches tall. I purchased mine from http://www.willamettevalleyhops.com

How many of you can say yours came with a nursery number? I'll photo-document as I go along.

Mine came from a steady good set of rhizomes from an existing hop patch at a brewery.

 

[sweetcell]

what happened here? BasementBrewmistress posted in this thread this morning, asking how everyone was doing... and now her post is gone? i still have the e-mail notification of her post, so i know i'm not making this up. database hiccup?

 

[Olive Drab]

Big, big puffy leaves. Magnum (center), tettnang (far left), Cascade (right)

what are you fertilizing with? My hops are first year and only the tettnang and cascade are like a foot or so long and the leaves are a yellow green. The hallertauer, chinook and nugget are a few inches with small leaves. I used all organic potting soil, manure, and covered with cedar which has kept the weeds out completely. I just bought some fish fertilizer to maybe help. My magnums have only sprouted one little stem total between the two rhizomes.

 

[dcHokie]

I'll be checking in on my hops planted at my folks place later today, VA hops growing update to follow

 

[hogwash]

My Chinook plant is ripping, a good 8 feet long and sidearms like crazy. Everything else is no more than 3 feet long with my goldings only a few inches long. I've been dumping manure on them the last couple weeks and will continue to do so. IIRC, June & July are pretty big growing months so fear not! RDWHAHB!

Olive Drab, you might want to pull back that cedar mulch so they can breathe. Might help. I've heard manure and fish emulsion works well for fertilizing. This is my first year using fertilizer.

 

[HALIFAXHOPS]

Mine in PA (columbus) are up to 17 ft over the wire, crazy cascades up to 9, magnum are sloww this year. Already had to spray neem due to the large number of catapillars.

 

[jskinner10]

One of my Cascades is well over 10' tall with sidearms starting to show up everywhere. My other Cascade is about 8' tall. One Centennial is roughly 5' tall and another is only about 3'. All are 1st year.

 

[dcHokie]

Checked in on my hops this weekend: 9 out of 10 rhizomes made it and are growing well. Brewer's Gold and Cascade are vastly outpacing the Centennial and Nugget.

Brewer's Gold

Brewer's Gold

 

[carlisle_bob]

Hi

Cascade and Willamette are going pretty strong here in southern PA.

Bbo

 

[Aunt_Ester]

Your brewer's gold looks awesome! No holes in your leaves, either.

What are you guys doing to keep the pests munching? I've been using some soap and water in a spray bottle, but it doesn't seem to be working so hot. How diligent are you guys about pests?

 

[dcHokie]

Your brewer's gold looks awesome! No holes in your leaves, either.

What are you guys doing to keep the pests munching? I've been using some soap and water in a spray bottle, but it doesn't seem to be working so hot. How diligent are you guys about pests?

Thanks, I'm pretty happy with the growth for rhizomes I should've gotten in the ground a couple weeks earlier than I did.

Mine haven't gotten any fertilizer or pest treatment, but my second group of Cascades nearby had a few nibbled leaves. What are the best non-chemical bug abatement/solutions?

 

[dcHokie]

This thread has been kind of quiet, how are all the VA hop crops faring??

My father just sent me these pics today of my first year growth and I hadn't really expected anything this year. Can anyone offer any harvesting timing advice for the local climate (especially given the recent extended stints of extreme weather)?

 

[ravhawk2000]

Down here I have 1st year Cascade, Centennial, and Mt. Hood. The Centennial is doing about what is expected for first year. It is about 7-8' tall and starting to form some good cones within last week or so. The Cascade was doing very well at about 15' tall until that massive storm rolled through and cut it in half. But it has since regrown to about 10' tall again, via a second shoot I was just leaving alone. It too is forming good cones. However, my Mt. Hood has gone crazy. It has two massive shoots one at nearly 25' and one at close to 20' tall. Each are forming very good large cones and forming multiple offshoots with buds forming. It does look like I need another regimen of fertilizer and a good watering after this warm weekend. But as a first year crop, I'm shocked at the performance so far. Just hoping it stays the course.

 

[calvinroots]

I've got Cascade going in the Tidewater area. My best looking one is about 10' tall. It's my first year growing. I purchased the "jumbo" cascade rhizomes from Willemette Valley.

 

[strumke]

Mine are all doing very well (except one that didn't make it). All first year plants in containers, trained on zig-zag trellises. They are all between 18 and 25+ feet with cones on the magnum and cascade. I need to take some photos and post them.

 

[hogwash]

My chinook is kicking some serious tail but nothing else is doing all that well. Well actually, my first year late planted columbus looks good but won't produce anything this year. Got some nice sized cones on the chinook already.

The chinook & columbus are the only ones that are not in a flower bed so I think I have some soil issues in my beds. I'm gonna cover them all with a bunch of manure & humus this fall and see if that helps for next year. Been hitting the hops with manure pretty regularly but hasn't seemed to help. These are third year plants so they should be doing something by now.

 

[mburnet]

In New Kent, my first year Centenial and Santium are around 10 ft with thick growth. East Kent Goldings, Fuggle, Crystal and Galena have topped 20 ft. The Galena is heavy with cones and the Crystal and Fuggle are producing moderate amounts. The Goldings is still in flower. Some of the galena has already gone into a cream stout that is quite good.

 

[jskinner10]

Here in the Shenandoah Valley my two 1st year Cascades are producing a nice little crop of hops; though they're not ready to pick quite yet. My 1st year Centennials, however, never grew above 6 ft and just continue to send up new shoots from the ground. I'm thinking about expanding my hop garden next spring and would love to hear what varieties others in the state are having good luck with.

 

[jskinner10]

Multiple Post

 

[jskinner10]

Multiple Post

 

[ao125]

This summer has been rough. No hops for me yet, though the plants are still alive.

 

[Aunt_Ester]

This summer has been rough. No hops for me yet, though the plants are still alive.

Same for me

 

[claphamsa]

mine died.... like all my other attempts.

 

[dcHokie]

Apparently Brewer's Gold loves the local (Shenandoah Valley) climate, my father/agricultural steward said they are LOADED with hops about 1" - 1.25" long and 5/8" to 7/8" wide.

 

[CastleHollow]

Second year Cascades crop, in Montpelier

Those are 8 mounds, about 15' high, tons of production

 

[strumke]

My backyard hops here in DC (Cascade, Magnum, Nugget, Sterling, Williamette)

 

[strumke]

Here are some cones. I have a decent amount of Magnum & Cascade cones and burrs on a couple of the others

 

[sweetcell]

my first year plants:

- cascade is kickin' ass. it has two ropes to climb, plant grew 20' on one and 15' on the other. producing plenty of cones, first 8 oz currently drying in the guest room. more cones on the way.

- centennial is also doing well, although it was a slow starter early on. it's about 8 feet tall on two ropes. harvested about 2 oz so far, hoping for another 2.

- nugget is similar to the centennial, although a tad taller and producing a few less cones. got slightly chocked out for a while by another vine. have picked maybe 1.5 oz so far.

- newport is about 10 feet tall and bushy, showing plenty of burrs but no cones yet. it's growing up the support lines of a utility pole in my front yard.

- santiam got slaughtered by someone i hired to mow the lawn back in may. it recoup'ed nicely but i'm just happy it's still alive. not expecting much from it.

- sterling is doing alright. it had 25' of rope but only climbed about 8' of it. showing a few burrs.

all of the above is based on a quick visit with my plants last week. i was on vacation the 2 weeks prior to that, and am visiting family in VT at the moment. i will post an update, and maybe some pix, next week.

 

[ravhawk2000]

picked the first batch of my Mt. Hood hops with more further down the bine to come, the other two, cascade and centennial are still maturing and should be good, but first year and won't be a large harvest. Better than expected, especially for Mt. Hood.

 

[ao125]

My hop plants had a great start, but no cones as of yet.

Damnit.

 

[Woodbrews]

Reviving this thread now that spring is just around the corner! We're planning to grow hops for the first time in our community garden plot in Arlington. I just ordered 2 plants each of Cascade, Centennial, and Magnum from GreatLakesHops. I think 6 plants is the most we can do given the space available. Need to get started soon on our hop trellis!

 

[AznDrgn]

I had some great looking first years rhizomes going last year in 25 gallon planters but I don't know if they survived the winter. Anyone have any advice as to whether I should dig around in there and find out or should I just wait?

 

[sweetcell]

I just ordered 2 plants each of Cascade, Centennial, and Magnum from GreatLakesHops.

welcome to the hobby!

quick suggestion: i would call up GLH and ask if you can swap out the magnums for something else.

magnums aren't very good for flavor or aroma, their main (almost exclusive) use is bittering. bittering with homegrown hops is problematic as you have no idea what their AA% will be. in my experience, the AA% on homegrown hops is lower - sometimes a lot lower - than commercial hops. so unless you're willing to brew a few test batches to figure out their relative strength (and ideally do side-by-side comparison batches with commercial hops of known AA%), using magnums risky - unless you're OK with a beer's bitterness being unknowable.

pesonally, i always use commercial for bittering and homegrown for late additions.

 

[Woodbrews]

welcome to the hobby!

quick suggestion: i would call up GLH and ask if you can swap out the magnums for something else.

magnums aren't very good for flavor or aroma, their main (almost exclusive) use is bittering. bittering with homegrown hops is problematic as you have no idea what their AA% will be. in my experience, the AA% on homegrown hops is lower - sometimes a lot lower - than commercial hops. so unless you're willing to brew a few test batches to figure out their relative strength (and ideally do side-by-side comparison batches with commercial hops of known AA%), using magnums risky - unless you're OK with a beer's bitterness being unknowable.

pesonally, i always use commercial for bittering and homegrown for late additions.

Thanks for the tip -- that is some very useful information. I'll give them a call and see if they can switch them out. Do you have a suggestion for a third hop variety? I'm focused on brewing mostly IPA's (and variations thereof) at this point, given that my wife and brewing partner is a serious hophead. Thanks!

 

[NTexBrewer]

http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/l...416-981d-11e3-aa03-0017a43b2370.html?mode=jqm

Maybe with a little google fu you can get more information about what hop varieties they discussed at the workshop.

https://www.facebook.com/OldDominionHopsCoop

Also found this. May have some information about what has grown well in Virginia.

 

[sweetcell]

Do you have a suggestion for a third hop variety? I'm focused on brewing mostly IPA's (and variations thereof)

for IPAs you've got the two cornerstones, cascade and centennial. i'd go for columbus and/or chinook. my buddy's columbus here in MD is out of control, out-grows everything else he has.

if you want to take a flyer, you could consider "Super Alpha (NZ)." i haven't grown it nor tasted it, however its (potential) numbers look good. "high myrcene levels" is a good thing!

 

[dcHokie]

^ What sweetcell said.

Nugget also fares well in this climate, if you enjoy them as flavor/aroma hops.

 

[jskinner10]

I also have a friend who grows both Columbus and Nugget and they do very well for him. He's in the Shenandoah Valley.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[sweetcell]

just saw that GLH has "Pacific Gem (NZ)". i'm interested...

my two biggest producers are cascade and newport. i'm only so-so on the aroma of newport, which is a shame because i get a sh*t-ton of it every year.

 

[VaBrewer]

These are my third year Chinook from last year. I consistently get large cones and the quantity has increased every year. These are grown in the Dulles corridor.


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