Show off your 2012 Hops garden!

Hop_Hero said:

Wow with comes that mature you might be able to harvest twice on some plants. Super cool

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That's almost assured. Not sure I'm all that thrilled about it though. This could be a looong rest of the season! Last season I got two distinct harvests, the first the last week of August and the second a few weeks later. I'm almost sure I'll be starting the picking within a couple of weeks, and the plants are still putting out lots of burrs...

Veedo said:

holy crap! how many years old are they? whats your secret to such massive growth!?

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They're all second year plants. Considering the degree of neglect I gave them this year wrt any sort of feeding (first Miracle-Gro application wasn't until mid-June, second was a few days ago), I'd have to attribute this to residual effects of all the good stuff I put into prepping the beds, and the fact that they're planted in a north-south row so they get full southern exposure, especially above the upper deck. It's ~22-23 feet to the suspension line and virtually all of the cones start above the 12 foot level - the part that gets sun nearly all day...

Cheers!

jperry said:

Yea, I use the bottles to slowly and precisely drip water. I saw something similar on tv, called a watering globe. I just used what I had at home, a bunch of empty bombers. My hose doesn't come close to reaching the garden so I've been lugging 5 gallon buckets of water, up a hill, to water the plants.

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How long do the bottles stay filled with water? I'm going out of town for two weeks and in addition to my in ground plants that are on a drip system, I have two potted plants on my deck that I water by hand. I'm looking for a 2 week watering solution (other than getting the neighbor to come by). Any suggestions from anybody would be much appreciated.

How did everyone else dig their post holes? I only have an auger, which leaves a ton of dirt in the hole, and this minute I'm digging out the post holes with a hand post hole digger, and it's probably going to murder me.

newtobrew5 said:

How long do the bottles stay filled with water? I'm going out of town for two weeks and in addition to my in ground plants that are on a drip system, I have two potted plants on my deck that I water by hand. I'm looking for a 2 week watering solution (other than getting the neighbor to come by). Any suggestions from anybody would be much appreciated.

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The 22 oz. bottles I use, empty themselves in about 2-3 days, depending on your soils drainage and how wet it already is. (seems to drip slower when soil is wet, but I'm not positive). I've also heard of people using trash cans, filled with water, with tiny holes at the bottom... but that may not help your situation with potted plants. In conclusion, I would highly recommend having neighbors water your plants.

Boca Raton hops doing good!! We've got cones

odinsgift said:

How did everyone else dig their post holes? I only have an auger, which leaves a ton of dirt in the hole, and this minute I'm digging out the post holes with a hand post hole digger, and it's probably going to murder me.

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I have a Post Hole Digger on my Tractor, but I still had to clean the holes out with a hand PHD. There's really no way around it, that I know of.

Yankeehillbrewer said:

I have a Post Hole Digger on my Tractor, but I still had to clean the holes out with a hand PHD. There's really no way around it, that I know of.

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Depends on the RPM of the auger. PTO driven, yeh. Two man throttled up, dipped in and out cleans in out. I've been diggin post holes as part of my Livin for 17 yrs. but still every man with an auger still needs a PHD.

I learned to dig twice with the auger, while cleaning around the hole with a shovel, but I still have a lot to dig out by hand, and my first holes I hadn't cleaned the auger with the shovel, so I have over a meter of dirt to clean, with a very small hand post hole digger. It is a very different experience having the shovels over a meter deep, and having to stand all the way up to dump every one handful of dirt. Tomorrow, I'm going to find a trowel and do it by hand.

Here is a pick of my 2 inch Cascade and 1 inch Centennial.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/photo/2012-hop-cones-55493.html


Second year plants both. Will be picking this weekend.

It ain't much, but my first year nuggets should yield a bajillion cones. Tey grow all around me as I drink beer on the deck.

Here are my Centennial and Cascade. They had some hail damage, but recovered.

I am in Aurora, Colorado. The poles need to be taller, as the top wire is only about 10 feet tall. The vines tend to cluster at the top. Last year's production was 28 dry ounces.

2nd year area is 10'x20' ordered 5 Zeus Rhizomes from freshops last year. Looks like one of them turned out to be a mystery Rhizome as its almost ready to be harvested. The 4 zeus are just starting to even produce a cone.


The wall of madness! maybe next year ill cut and train 3 vines per rope.


Mystery Hops not quite ready.

Twelve posts installed today. Beer time.

odinsgift said:

Twelve posts installed today. Beer time.

View attachment 67660

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What is in the background there?

Can I ask how much you are paying for posts? I'm looking for something that big but can't find any in an acceptable price range.

First year Brewer's Gold. They are still trying to get rid of the yellowing they got when they suffered severe winds for a week straight coupled with nutrient deficiency and large sudden changes in temperature. Other than that they are both growing super fast and there are even burrs! Not bad for a first year.

EDIT: Aaaand the first photo is sideways. Stupid dropbox

PariahVineyard said:

What is in the background there?

Can I ask how much you are paying for posts? I'm looking for something that big but can't find any in an acceptable price range.

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I paid 24USD per post, plus freight to California from Montana, they are pressure treated, took four months to arrive, and of some coniferous variety of tree. In the background, either the wineyard? Or the toilet? I'm sure the guys in the wineyard are asking the same question of what I'm doing. They are 16' above ground, and 4' below.

odinsgift said:

I paid 24USD per post, plus freight to California from Montana, they are pressure treated, took four months to arrive, and of some coniferous variety of tree. In the background, either the wineyard? Or the toilet? I'm sure the guys in the wineyard are asking the same question of what I'm doing. They are 16' above ground, and 4' below.

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I sent you a PM

Second year nugget and cascade...




I think I will move these next year to the side yard and replace them with two or three Kent Goldings or Fuggles. And let them climb over a pergola.

2nd year cascade and centennial at the inlaws. What a mess!





Picture of a hop flower that I could reach. There are hop cones on one of the plants.

So jealous of all those tall ones reaching for the sky. My Centennial and Fuggle are about 8-9 feet high, and the centennial is getting little flowers on the top half. The Fuggle is much bushier, but hasn't started with burrs yet. These are the full crown from Great Lakes.

Spider mites ate mine

Took some rooftop shots today, my burrs are cone-n' up slowly. . These were of my Cascade plant which has reached about 15-16 feet in it's first year. Added some wood ash from the fireplace to the bottom of the plants to hopefully help with some yellowing and leaves dying on the lower 2.5ft of the plant.

Here's mine. Four beds ~6 ft. wide, two plants per bed; wild, wild, Cascade, and Centennial. Wild ones were in large pots last year, Cascade and Centennial are new this year.



Twine runs from plants to top of garage (15 ft high, plus 6 ft diagonal), through eye bolts at the top and finally tied to center eye bolt near the ground.

Here are my two cascade plants, they are first year I just put them in the mulch bed with no other additives (I've miracle growed a few times). Just starting to see buds and flowers, but they start at 8-10ft high. Is that normal??

First year Chinook at about 14 feet and flowering.

This is my third season into my hop growing adventure. From left to right I have Mt Hood/Zeus (they got mixed up so I'll need to split them out next season), Cascade, Cascade, and Nugget. The cascades are in the closeup against my hand, I'll likely get a record yield from them this season, there are already mature cones. Its kind of hard to see in the pictures, but I have the plastic string running through eye bolts from the base of the trellis, up the side, out to the end, and then down to the plant at ground level. There's plenty of slack on the center post end which allows me to easily lower the bines and harvest only the ripe cones. This allows me to continually harvest for 4-6 weeks, a couple times a week. The posts are 16' 4x4s set 2 feet in the ground, the largest I could find in my area. The system works pretty well and allows for me to easily manage the whole system by myself.

shotputman said:

Here are my two cascade plants, they are first year I just put them in the mulch bed with no other additives (I've miracle growed a few times). Just starting to see buds and flowers, but they start at 8-10ft high. Is that normal??

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Yes, the hop cones are mostly formed near the top of the plant.

I'm up in New Jersey and picked 18 oz from one of my Cascade plants tonight. I will pick the other Cascade tomorrow. The one I picked still had burs on it. I just let it go wild and trim a few times. I hope to get 3 harvests from each plant.


This pick was from a month ago so from burr to full cone in 1 month:



Harvest 18 oz

brian2can said:

I'm up in New Jersey and picked 18 oz from one of my Cascade plants tonight. I will pick the other Cascade tomorrow. The one I picked still had burs on it. I just let it go wild and trim a few times. I hope to get 3 harvests from each plant.

This pick was from a month ago so from burr to full cone in 1 month:

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I've read 6-8 weeks from burr to harvest. Ive got about three dozen big cones on each of 5 plants. All have a lot of lupilin. How do you know when there ready?

Stevo
Well i saw a few were just falling apart. I kept on checking by squeezing and get that paper feel and spring back, but i thought they could get bigger. Some were 2 inches and some 1 inch. Then when i check today some were just falling apart. I have been taking 1 at a time and tearing apart and tasting, and they are awesome. So i picked 1 Cascade plant and got 18 oz.

It is typical for this to happen and you should pull those leaves off anyways. You don't want anything on the lower 3' of your bine.

SkyHighBrew88 said:

Took some rooftop shots today, my burrs are cone-n' up slowly. . These were of my Cascade plant which has reached about 15-16 feet in it's first year. Added some wood ash from the fireplace to the bottom of the plants to hopefully help with some yellowing and leaves dying on the lower 2.5ft of the plant.

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PariahVineyard said:

It is typical for this to happen and you should pull those leaves off anyways. You don't want anything on the lower 3' of your bine.

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Glad to hear it's a typical thing to happen. We've had several days in the high 90s and a few over 100F and that had me concerned. They seem to be ok, just didn't want any of that yellowing to progress further up the plant. I'm new at this so thanks for your insight!

Here's a couple shots of some hops grown in Southern California (N. San Diego County). The first pictures are of three second-year Chinook grown in large pots in a south-facing location. And the last ones, under the pine trees, are first year Cascade, on the east side of the house. Check out all the compost volunteers that came up with the hops! Tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, cilantro, beets, and squash.

I'll try to snap some pictures of the older plants soon. I plan to harvest some of the Chinook and Cascade to throw into the kettle today, so i wanted to snap a couple pictures before the first harvest. Not the best pictures but so it goes...

I can't get the other Cascade pictures to upload at the moment--will try again later when I have more time...Here's the least exciting one with the compost volunteers. Pictures of hops, hopefully, to come.

Picture from today. The first year Cascades (right) have a good amount of burrs, second year Fuggles (left) has some burrs and the first year MT Hood (center) has nothing and is only a couple of feet tall (about what the Fuggle did last year).

I do contract design work from a second floor office in my home. Said office has its own slider out to the upper deck, and this is the view these days from just outside the slider.

Centennial to the left, Chinook to the right.


Cascade down the other end.


I'll definitely be picking hops this weekend. The Centennial is ready...


...as are the Cascade...


...but the crazy Chinook harvest is going to be spread out over many weeks to come.


The things went totally insane with so many flowers I couldn't believe it could turn them all into decent size cones, but there are many over two inches long already and they're all growing bigger by the day!

Ok. Back to work...

Cheers!

Here's my garden left to right goldings- fuggles (not doing so great)- Mt. Hood- cascade. Last year I did just cascade and had little to show for it. With help from JRems this year I think I'll have something to toss in the kettle. The figs look good too.

Does Anyone have any of these hops:

day_trippr said:

I do contract design work from a second floor office in my home. Said office has its own slider out to the upper deck, and this is the view these days from just outside the slider.

Centennial to the left, Chinook to the right.

Cascade down the other end.

I'll definitely be picking hops this weekend. The Centennial is ready...

...as are the Cascade...

...but the crazy Chinook harvest is going to be spread out over many weeks to come.

The things went totally insane with so many flowers I couldn't believe it could turn them all into decent size cones, but there are many over two inches long already and they're all growing bigger by the day!

Ok. Back to work...

Cheers!

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Those Hops are Amazing......my Cascades are that last to mature out of 16 varieties that I raise. Where do you live? My Cascade Hops will not get that big till mid August.
I live in an area where they raised a lot of commercial hops and have get about a pound of dried hops per plant.

First year for them. Bought them as plants. Bamboo polls are working out great.


Hops by Rob Bone III, on Flickr