Cascades & Chinooks - 5th Summer

Some years back i pick up 4 rhizomes from the online and decided to try growing hops. 2 Cascades, 1 Chinook & 1 Willamette (RIP). When you're new to Hop Gardening, it can be a bit overwhelming and sometimes that first year yield is a disappointment. Anyway, take heart...

These are from about 2 weeks ago, the first 2 shots are Cascades growing in my back yard. Since this was taken, I've had to radically prune the willow to keep them from growing up into the tree. These were 2 rhizomes 5 years ago. they now completely dominate the 4X8 bed.

The next 3 are the Chinook growing on a trellis by my front door. Last Spring I ripped the crown out of the ground and relocated it a few feet from its previous spot for better trellising.

 

Growing your own hops is a wonderful thing. I have 2 1yo plants, and 1st year Centennials, 6 plants. Planning on making some awesome DIPAs and fresh hop brews in future years!

 

thats great cause i planted three in late april (cascade magnum and fuggle) and only fuggle has grown . i do get plenty of sunlight .. im thinking bad rhizomes?

 

Go Ill-Noise hops....!!!! love it. im going to plant some next year, just moved to a new place that can grow what ever i want.

 

Here is my 4th year chinook plant. The fence is about 12' wide and 5.5' tall. This was taken over a week ago so its grown more since then.



Edit: Now that I look at this pic and compare it to how it looks now, this thing has grown a BUNCH since I took the pic. Much thicker now. And lest I be too prideful, My other 5 plants aren't faring nearly as well though they are doing better than they ever have.

 

I'm surprised that grows so well in Joliet! I might have to plant some over here in Shorewood.

 

You are right about the first year hops , I had all vine and no hops, this year I have a 20' x 4' hop garden and they are looking great. Seems down here in SC the C hop plants grow the best.

 

I'm in Joliet too, I am having some awesome success with my Nugget, Sunbeam, an Willamette this year, but its nothing compared to that 4 x 8 bed! Thats gotta yield you some great hops!

 

I'm in Glenview and my cascades(2nd year) are bushy and 14' tall already

My 2nd year Centennials are not quite as robust and about 6-8' tall right now

 

This is my first yr growing hops and was wondering if you need to cut them off at the ground every yr? I have a northern, chinook, and mugnum right now and the chinook is about 3 ft taller then the other 2 right now

 

You want to wait to cut them back until all of the bines have died and dried up in the fall/winter.

 

I missed my time this year to grow some, but, I live in Crest Hill (just north of Joliet) and not I know where to go hop pickin ipe:

Kidding. I'll have to plan better next year, but those are looking good.

 

Does one variety (chinook vs Cascade) have darker leaves than the other? I am trying to identify some in my garden.

 

I'm sure this has been answered, but I had no luck searching for it.

I bought some rhizomes from LHBS, is there a way to tell how "old" they are? This is what I'm getting at, the first year the cones are supposed to be minimal. But since their rhizomes, they're from a plant that could already be a few year old, furthermore that plant could have been from rhizomes that were a few year old... and so on. Unless you're growing from seeds, your rhizomes are from an "old" plant.

Maybe I just don't understand the concept behind rhizomes...

 

I just started my rhizomes two or three weeks ago and they already needing a more permanent home. Gonna go with a half whiskey barrel/close-line trellis from home depot and see how they go from there. I ordered two Chinook and two Goldings just to see if I could keep something alive for 1 week (not a green thumb)


BTW I forgot to mark which hop plants were what

 

1st year hop grower here. I've got 2 cascade, 1 nugget, 1 Zeus, 1 Centennial, and one mystery plant(it's either Magnum or Chinook). All are doing well, but the Cascade especially grows like nothing I've ever seen before, it's a monster. Nugget seems to be a fast grower as well. I'll take a pic of my set up, I recently finished it and have to wrap the vines up(before they were growing up tomato stakes).

Since they're growing so well, next March I plan on ordering about 50 rhizomes and will sell fresh hops to the local home brew shops/farmers markets/beer festivals/etc... My job permits me to have Summers off and growing these have been quite enjoyable.

 

Also in the Chicago area. As I am in a rental town home, I used 12" pots to start my plants this year. I have a pot of Mt Hood, one of Northern Brewer and one of Cascade. The first two have done well, trying to train them to grow up a fence. The cascade not growing as fast- partially due to a midnight attack by a squirrel or two.

 

AIKEN hell yea! ever grow Goldings? mine have been sucking for the 2 yrs I've had them here in montmorenci. not one useable hop!

 

You don't want to grow hops from seeds because you will get female plants (good) and male plants (bad). The male plants will cross-pollinate everything and you'll end up with a bunch of hops that are all the same. Only female hops from rhizomes are good for brewing beer (unless you know how to cull the male plants). Anyways, I think as far as age of plants goes, whether you have rhizome or a hop seed that is planted it takes a while for it to establish a big root system and really get going. I'm a first year hop farmer myself and started with 5 rhizomes in pots this year. I transplanted 3 into the ground in a permanent location after several weeks and I was amazed at how large the roots had already grown...I imagine now that they are huge. Maybe an analogy would be like the growth phase of yeast during fermentation...it could start fermenting sugars right away, but first it takes some time to build a nice solid foundation (large yeast colony) then it goes to work eating sugar and making alcohol and CO2.:fro:

 

nvrstck- That's not entirely accurate. You don't want to grow hops from seed because it will be a completely new variety of hop with little predictability as to the quality of the cone. Hops are gigantic monocultures. Every Cascade hop comes from the same plant via rhizome propagation. You cannot grow Cascade hops by seed.

People involved with the USDA and University of Oregon have been experimenting with hops for decades now. Most of the hops they develop are simply given a number to identify them. Once it is discovered that Female XXX is a desirable hop for brewing, it will then be further cultivated and given a sexy name.

As for hop roots, make sure you want them in your yard because once you plant them, you could be stuck with them forever. Just think about how much growth there is above the surface, the same amount of growth is going on below the surface too.

 

I live in Roanoke, VA and would more than happy to purchase some of your hops in the future! Good luck!

 

I'm growing first year plants and I'm shocked yours haven't tried to climb that willow tree. Mine grew up my lattices and before I knew it up into the damn tree above it lol. I have some cone development now and 2 plants over 15 feet tall each. I'm not expecting to actually get hops off them as they are first years. I'm actually surprised to even see cone growth tbh.

 

So it's been sometime since I've been able to reply to this thread. Its great to see so many other local Illinois brewers! I want to thank everyone for the great feedback and the good discussions this has sparked in general.

So here's where the cascades are today... as JFK indicated above, they eventually grew into the willow tree. About a week after i posted the first shots my wife and I had to prune the MF outta that willow. You wouldnt know it too look at these shots.

The hops on the rain barrels are about 3 years old, since I never got around to patching the leaks in 'em this spring, I never put up any sort of trellising, just propped up some of the larger willow branches

My long term goal is to eliminate the cascades from near the willow and them growing around the pergola over the patio and the fence along side, I planted rhizome cuttings this spring...

The shots are a bit fuzzy, but given the oppressive heat and my unwillingness to remove my sunglasses... well... deal with it!

 

The Chinooks are looking really good. I'm excited to make a stout with these come fall.

I've been feeding all the hops in my yard a mix of the Alaskan Fish Emulsion (5-1-1), Unsulfured Blackstarp Molasses (good source of Phosphates and micro nutes) and top dressing one or twice with a hand shovel or two of hardwood ash. This and the compost I add every spring has been pretty good to me so far...

The robin you'll see at the end is Byoncee (wife chose the name... just sayin'!) she built her nest atop the light near my fort door and FREAKS the F- out when ever I'm so selfish as to want to walk in and out.

 

Hey, if your willing to let some of that beautiful Cascade and Chinook go, I'll happily take those off your hands. Well rhizomes at least.

 

I'm pretty sure you can cut your own rhizomes from your plants after cutting them back in the fall, so you won't have to buy as many