Location x 3, where to move my hop garden to? Dividing and moving my murdered hops.

[kilohertz]

Hello fellow growers,

This is my first post here, having been bitten by the hop growing bug in the last year. I'll tell you my story then get to the point of the post.

It all started 5 years ago, when I revived the garden area left by the previous home owner, a small 20' x 20' fenced area. It was a disaster of weeds and crap as the house had been empty for a few years...so out came the shovel, pitch fork and rototiller. Garden grew great for 2 years but the weeds kept coming back, and especially this crappy root thing...tried rototilling it all again, got rid of most of the roots and tried the garden again, next year...same thing. Got to reading a herb encyclopedia one night and flipped to a page with these little cone looking things....oh SH..T, those things I have been trying to kill for 3 years were hop plants put in by the previous owner. DOH! :smack: So for all of you who are worried about transplanting these and hurting them...mmmm they seem pretty hardy to me, coming back from total annihilation 3 years in a row. So I have been babying them for the last 2 years and they produced over 1 KG last year. Yeah!! However, they are growing mostly horizontal on this chicken wire type fence, which is a major pita to pick, so they are getting moved this weekend and I want to combine the move with a good splitting up of the crown, which is now about 3' across with multiple rhizomes root centers, so I need to figure out how many divisions to make, then cut and paste them into their new location.....

So now, for their new home, I have put up some pics to show where I am thinking. Look forward to some input as I only want to move them once, and also have more room for future expansion. I have 20 acres, about 5 on the lower part if the property are usable, the rest goes up the mountain to the south. The fence in the pictures runs straight N-S, and this is where I would like to put them. There is already drip irrigation setup on the fence line and the fence posts are rock solid. My plan is to add 12-14' poles on every second fence post, maybe planting them 1-2', and firmly attaching to the fence and running a wire along the top, with drop twine down to the plants. I am thinking I will probably end up with 10-12 plants from the existing mass of roots, plant them 3-4' apart and watch them grow. The shoots are already 2" out of the crown, and the soil is very soft and wet, just starting spring here, buds just showing on the trees.

The other place I could put them would be in a E-W line on the south side of the lean-to, using the roof line as the trellis holder, however, no water over there, and limited expansion room.

So, is okay to put these in a line north to south? In the pics, we are looking northwest at the fence, and northeast at the lean-to, and the property runs straight north-south, 100M X 800M. Pictures were taken at 5pm yesterday, so you can see where the shadows are.

Your thoughts?

Thanks all,

Paul

 

[HALIFAXHOPS]

I think the bulldozer is a little much to dig them with!!!!! I have moved crowns and rhizomes almost every year I have been growing due to lack of knowledge when I first fell into this. It is really hard to kill them. Make sure your "trellis" is oriented with the wind, Ideal usually from west to east so that is the way to orient them if possible. Most of mine are still n to s and they act like a sail when the bines are mature. If water is an issue try one of those 250 gallon water tanks they use for foodstuff. I can get them here for around 45 ea. I stacked one on top of the other and gravity feed the dripline from the top one, I am to lazy to build a tower stand which would be around 100 in parts. I also ran a 3/4 flexible sprinkler pipe underground to the tank to help fill it when my pond (primary water source) dries up in the late summer. I just hook it up to the well spigot by the house, sure beats running 150" of hose every time they need water. If you need driptape I have a ton of it, also dripdepot is really good on their prices. I have my trellis posts that are 20" 4x4 spaced around 30 " apart with 1/4 stainless caple on the top. Hope it helps.

 

[kilohertz]

Thanks Halifaxhops,

You have given me a few good ideas...mainly getting my rain barrels set up. I have about 6 or so, poly barrels from the local u-brew place, about 200L each and I need to get my gutters draining into them this year.

I think I will start the transplant along the fence shown, running north south, which will for this year be out of the way. Then when I get all the poles ready to install, I can in the area where the dozer is sitting, I can run the hops E-W. The sun just popped out here and I am going to do the tilling and get ready to transplant before the next rain gets here. Radar is a wonderful thing.

More later,

Thanks

Paul

 

[HALIFAXHOPS]

What I love about water barrels is you can add the fertilize directly to the water. Make sure you put a filter inline if you do that. Drip depot has everything you need. If you want 5/8 tape let me know I have 1/4 mile of new that I am not using.

 

[kilohertz]

So for the last 2 weeks or so I have been tilling and prepping the area long the fence...turned out to be the best place to move them, plus gives me room for expansion....I have split up the plant (Hopzilla) into 15 plants and they are doing great. Bought another 16 rhizomes and planted them today, added onto the drip irrigation and I now have 30 plants growing...hopefully will be a good harvest this year. I know the new plants won't make much but the old guys should be fine.

Cheers for now

Paul

 

[kilohertz]

Well, I forgot to update you last fall when harvest came around, but here is how we did.

My son (12) and I dug 5 holes by hand and planted 20' long cedar poles next to the fence, sunk 3' deep. Then ran a length of ACSR #4 wire (Aluminum Conductor Steel Re-enforced) polyethylene coated wire, thru holes drilled 6" from the top, and tied fast at one end of the fence, and a boat trailer winch at the other so that I can lower the line in the fall to make picking ladder-free. Trellis ended up at 17' and the 16 plants that came from Hopzilla all did very well, at least half of them made it to the top and then started branching out on the horizontal line. Yikes! I used sisal twine anchored with bricks looped over the wire for the bines to grow on. They love it, it's biodegradable and burns easily with the leftovers after harvest. After all was finished, I think I ended up with about 5Kg of hops, about 11 lbs. not bad for our first go at it.

This year, I am seriously trying to determine what my mystery Hopzilla is, and also plant another 30-40 plants of mixed variety. I bought a post hole auger for my Bobcat and this year won't be getting any blisters from the clam shell hole digger. Probably add another 6 - 10 poles which I still have laying on the ground and get some more wire for another row. Looking forward to the snow melting, still over a foot on the ground, and getting some new plants in.

Of the new plants I put in last year, the Mt. Hood, Chinook and Sterling did the best, producing a decent crop and all reaching 17'. The others all produced, but not the same qty. They were Brewer's Gold, Hallertauer, Magnum, Northern Brewer and Zeus.

I want to add another 6 ea. of some other varieties and maybe a few more of what I already have. Taking some more of my mystery hops in to a brew master today to see if we can figure them out.

Here is the crop near the end of summer. The last picture is of the 8 new varieties. Not bad for first year, planted in June.

That's the update.

Cheers

 

[marcopolo]

how deep do you plant your rhizomes ? Do you amend your soil ?

 

[kilohertz]

I think I put the new ones about 4" deep, with the shoot(s) pointing up. I used 1-1-1 mushroom manure, about a liter per rhizome mixed in with the natural dirt. I rototilled the whole row before I started so everything was nice and loose. The ones that I split up and moved I put deeper as they were well established plants, probably 8-10" deep.

Cheers

 

[SnowcreekWI]

gotta ask, with a name like kilohertz and access to #4 ACSR and probably used cedar poles you must work for a electric utility? Looks like you even guyed/anchored the end poles. I work for a elect co-op owned warehouse in WI so recognize all the hardware.

Mike (Snowcreek)

 

[kilohertz]

gotta ask, with a name like kilohertz and access to #4 ACSR and probably used cedar poles you must work for a electric utility? Looks like you even guyed/anchored the end poles. I work for a elect co-op owned warehouse in WI so recognize all the hardware.

Mike (Snowcreek)

Hi Mike,

Well you are darn close...ham operator and worked for the railway..and live real close to an old rail line with old telegraph wire and such. Good pickin' The end poles aren't guyed but the ACSR goes down to the ground and is anchored to a fence post on one end, winch on the other. Allows tensioning the line as the weight increases and then drop it all in the fall. Works great. The poles I made from cedar trees that were cut and left by the previous home owner. He had a small saw mill and I made the trees and leftover timber part of the sale.

Cheers

 

[kilohertz]

I planted 60 plants this weekend and installed all the drip lines and emitters, got the drip system programmed then sat down for a beers last night, satisfied with the almost complete project. I will post some more pics with the winches mounted in a new thread.

Still trying to decide what to use to hold the heavy sisal to the ground for them to grow on, but am thinking railway spikes as they are "locally" available. They are heavy, 6" long and free. I looked around town for another solution but couldn't find anything under $100.

Cheers

 

[tjpfeister]

I'm setting up my trellis this coming weekend and have been back and forth on the idea of using trailer winches for lowering the top cable. I would love to see some photos of your setup and any input on how well it works around your center posts when the ropes are tied to them. Cheers, BTW