Man plans, Nature laughs....

[sumbrewindude]

Best of intentions, thought I could pull a fast one on nature and grow my hops in cut 55gal barrels. drilled some small holes for drainage, lined the barrels with weed stop, put in dirt/rhizomes, and watered/tended all summer.

Was blessed with a great harvest for a first year plants, thought everything was going as planned.

Then I went and moved the barrels today to keep them up by the house over the winter.

At first, they didn't want to come up. Odd. Got some help, and was greeted with the sound of ripping roots. Uh-oh. After we got all the barrels moved, I looked over the dirt - big ol' roots went through the weed guard, through the holes, and into the ground. Huh. Well, it can't be that bad....

Fast forward to breaking out shovels, hand rakes, etc, and digging down a good 2+ feet into the ground and removing over a half 5gal bucket full of large roots (wider than .5") and knowing full well I didn't get them all.

Bugger.

Well, I'll have to figure out a better solution for the barrels to keep the roots from passing out the drain holes, and I'll see if I have any surprises in the spring. Let me tell you, I heard Cascades send roots everywhere, and they aren't kidding at all, and man oh man can Hallertau go deep...

 

[TeeJo]

Same solution as any potted plant. Drop the pot on to a tray to catch the seepage and keep the roots from escaping.

We'll wait around here for a while for the report from the guy that thinks his luck is golden because he found hops growing, but wants us to ID them.

Maybe leave a label on a nearby wall, eh?

TeeJo

 

[sumbrewindude]

Ha, they're in the backyard. I know exactly where, and what they are.

To make it even more serendipitous (if you could believe it that way), I planted them along the fence line as that's what was holding the pole up.

One way or another, they'll have something to grow on.... only problem is, they were only 3' apart from each other in the barrels, so if they DO take off on their own, well, that'll be a mess to figure out what's what....



Stupid nature....

 

[B-Hoppy]

I don't think you'll have anything to worry about as the only thing that went into the ground were roots, not rhizomes.