2013 Hop garden photo thread

[bluelimbo]

Holy shnikes... the yeilds off of some of the first year hops posted in this thread is making me insanely jealous. That is a hell of a haul. I picked off maybe 2oz from my cascade (at best) and have been watering roughly 2 gallons a day...

If you are pulling lb(s) off a first year hop, do everyone on the forum a favor and let us know what you have been doing to take care of them... besides given them 'roids!!

 

[day_trippr]

Don't forget that a pound wet equates to ~3 ounces dry. I pulled a little over 7 pounds from my first year plants and thought I was swimming in hops

btw, 2 gallons per day in the Chicagoland area seems wildly excessive unless you're in the midst of a protracted heat wave. My third year plants get that much water once every three days - and this year I totally am swimming in hops

Cheers!

 

[RomanRider]

Brought in almost 9 pounds of Centennial cones today, roughly 11 gallons of 'em. Way more than I expected. They're in the drying rig and the house is filled with the amazingly intense aroma of hops! (spouse just walked past my office and said "It totally reeks!" Yeah, baby! )

I'm definitely going to be giving some dried/vac-bagged/frozen hops away this year. Between the Centennial, Chinook and Cascade I'm probably going to end up with around 7 pounds of dried cones, and I still have hops left over from last year. Someone in this group warned me last year this was gonna happen. It's a high-class problem to have, for sure

The beer is my house "home-grown-hopped IPA", using my Chinook, Cascade and Centennial. Seemed appropriate!

Cheers!

Too funny! My wife hates the smell of hops too. She does like beer though and always tries any IPA that I try, but hasn't found one she likes yet. I cut down my Centennials Saturday and she even helped me harvest the hops. (3.9 lbs wet) (in addition to the few ounces I harvested in July) I dry them in the garage so the garage smells wonderful to me. She is my cap crimper when I bottle, and co-judge of my not so hoppy beers. She told me tonight that we should find somewhere to plant other varieties of hops. I'm happy with that as long as she continues to help me harvest!

 

[Komocabo]

Yeah homegrown hops! I have 6 varieties and have only harvested 3 so far. Cheers!

 

[Komocabo]

More... probably have 6-8#. Plus, my father-in-law has 6 more plants that I can have if I do all the work... um... deal! Should end up with about. 12-15# as his plants are old and mature. That will keep me busy for a while.
Varieties (mine): Willamette, Galena, Magnum, Cascade, Zeus, and Centennial.

Varieties (his): Mt. Hood, Cascade, Halletaur, Brewer's Gold, Willamette, and Magnum.

I'm a very luck man (and son-in-law)

 

[Komocabo]

Oh and those are wet weight, not dry... still pretty darn hoppy, I mean happy

 

[mthompson]

Centennials got picked the other day.

Bottom of the plants (and a guard dog)

Crappy pic, but it was a mounded 5gal buckets worth from two 2nd year plants.

I didn't weight them wet, but they are almost dry now.

Cascades and wilds in the next couple of weeks.

 

[msu09]

This thread depresses me... I'm going to end up with around 7 lbs wet for 7 second year plants.... I must be doing something wrong... but congrats to all of you! They look beautiful!

 

[jethro55]

Centennials got picked the other day.

Bottom of the plants (and a guard dog)

Crappy pic, but it was a mounded 5gal buckets worth from two 2nd year plants.

I didn't weight them wet, but they are almost dry now.

Cascades and wilds in the next couple of weeks.

fyi just in case - Be careful with the guard dog around the hops - have read some info on several posts about serious danger to them if they consume some hops.

 

[NuclearRich]

This thread depresses me... I'm going to end up with around 7 lbs wet for 7 second year plants.... I must be doing something wrong... but congrats to all of you! They look beautiful!

I only got a little over 1oz dried from my 3rd yr Willamette. And that was it's best production yet. Dont be discouraged. My second yr nugget gave me 8oz dried this yr.

 

[bedman]

First year cascade harvest. 30oz wet. South york county pa.

 

[TangoHotel]

I only got a little over 1oz dried from my 3rd yr Willamette. And that was it's best production yet. Dont be discouraged. My second yr nugget gave me 8oz dried this yr.

My 2nd year Willamette might give me a full ounce dry. :-\ hopefully she does better next year or she's getting replaced.

 

[sidebysideproductions]

Full harvest complete! Cascade was the big player of course. Chinook second, centennial third. I'm having trouble with hallertau, 3 years in a row and only about a handful of cones.



Question now... I really need to turn the patch over and whack the crowns back. Should I dig them up now or wait until the start of next season?

Thank you all. Happy brewing!
-J

 

[specialkaye]

Holy shnikes... the yeilds off of some of the first year hops posted in this thread is making me insanely jealous. That is a hell of a haul. I picked off maybe 2oz from my cascade (at best) and have been watering roughly 2 gallons a day...

If you are pulling lb(s) off a first year hop, do everyone on the forum a favor and let us know what you have been doing to take care of them... besides given them 'roids!!

Amen to this, Brother.

 

[half_whit]

First year cascade harvest. 30oz wet. South york county pa.

View attachment 144982



View attachment 144983

No kiddin!? Whereabouts? I'm growing in Fawn Grove. Cascades didn't make it but my fuggels BLEW UP. Doing harvest #2 tomorrow

 

[bedman]

No kiddin!? Whereabouts? I'm growing in Fawn Grove. Cascades didn't make it but my fuggels BLEW UP. Doing harvest #2 tomorrow

Shrewsbury. Cascades did well. Columbus yield will be HUGE. Maganum and Nugget are looking good but slightly less than cascades. Not much on my Sterlings. Pretty decent for first years.

 

[AndMan3030]

First Year Columbus Hops

 

[bedman]

Holy shnikes... the yeilds off of some of the first year hops posted in this thread is making me insanely jealous. That is a hell of a haul. I picked off maybe 2oz from my cascade (at best) and have been watering roughly 2 gallons a day...

If you are pulling lb(s) off a first year hop, do everyone on the forum a favor and let us know what you have been doing to take care of them... besides given them 'roids!!

I have to say I think the whole giving them a ton of water is kind of bogus for the first year. All you really want to do is encourage strong deep root growth the first year. If you water every day for the entire season that's just not going to happen.

With my vegetable crops I water well until the plants are matured and established and then for the most part let nature take over. If your soil is saturated all throughout the roots will be lazy and just get the closest available moisture and nutrients. If you starve them a bit (once they are established! Very important) the roots are forced to grow and travel deeper into the soil to find moisture. That's how you grow a nice strong root system (in my experience).

I decided to follow this philosophy with my first years and they seem to be doing well. Does that have anything to do with yields? Maybe. Hard to tell without a control.

Just putting that info out into the ether.

 

[TangoHotel]

Sunbeam and Willamette. Really disappointed with the Willamette. Not even a full wet oz... Sunbeam got just about a full pound overall.

 

[mthompson]

fyi just in case - Be careful with the guard dog around the hops - have read some info on several posts about serious danger to them if they consume some hops.

I know. She's not one to eat things. But I definitely watch them, and keep large quantities out of their "curious range".

She's a hunting dog and was much too content watching the gulls in the harvested wheat field to the left.

Cheers,

 

[mthompson]

The cereal bowl is 1 oz., the rest are in a 5gal bucket.

My guess is 1.4 lbs of centennial... Will be packaging tonight.

 

[bluelimbo]

Hey bedman - Fair enough & not a bad philosophy. I was hearing that hop bines during the hottest days of summer really needed up to 4 gallons of water per day (I think this is for mature plants?). I think I heard this on BN when they had a guy from HopsDirect on there. I may be just not be remembering all of this correctly though. Not uncommon for me.

Either way, these are my second batch of hops. The first died off when I took the tactic you outlined. It happened though that it was an exceptionally warm summer in the Chicagoland area; that coupled with having to take care of a new baby... those hops never had a chance. So I basically swung the other way when planting these hops this year.

2 gal. may be over kill but I am hoping this gives them a leg up for 2nd year harvest. Who knows! We will see! Might knock it back to 2 gal ever other day next year. Meah, always fun to play around with it and see what you get!

 

[bedman]

Hey bedman - Fair enough & not a bad philosophy. I was hearing that hop bines during the hottest days of summer really needed up to 4 gallons of water per day (I think this is for mature plants?). I think I heard this on BN when they had a guy from HopsDirect on there. I may be just not be remembering all of this correctly though. Not uncommon for me.

Either way, these are my second batch of hops. The first died off when I took the tactic you outlined. It happened though that it was an exceptionally warm summer in the Chicagoland area; that coupled with having to take care of a new baby... those hops never had a chance. So I basically swung the other way when planting these hops this year.

2 gal. may be over kill but I am hoping this gives them a leg up for 2nd year harvest. Who knows! We will see! Might knock it back to 2 gal ever other day next year. Meah, always fun to play around with it and see what you get!

Don't get me wrong, as my hop bines were growing inches per day I was giving them plenty of water. But once they seemed close to their max length I backed off. My main concern was letting those roots travel deep into the soil. I wasn't worried about yields.

Next year I don't think I will take the same approach. My roots should be well established so I will do much more watering/nutrient additions so those cones have lots to work with as they grow.

Not trying to revolutionize hop growing. I just don't like to get caught up in those 'cut off the end of the ham' situations.

 

[bedman]

All of that being said.....I am going to have a stupid amount of columbus hops if all goes well. Anyone up for a trade?!

 

[half_whit]

Sunbeam and Willamette. Really disappointed with the Willamette. Not even a full wet oz... Sunbeam got just about a full pound overall.

That's pretty much the same as my first year Fuggles to Centennial ratio. Really wish my cascades had pulled through. Looks like everyone else did really well with them!

 

[mthompson]

Don't get me wrong, as my hop bines were growing inches per day I was giving them plenty of water. But once they seemed close to their max length I backed off. My main concern was letting those roots travel deep into the soil. I wasn't worried about yields.

Next year I don't think I will take the same approach. My roots should be well established so I will do much more watering/nutrient additions so those cones have lots to work with as they grow.

Not trying to revolutionize hop growing. I just don't like to get caught up in those 'cut off the end of the ham' situations.

If you want to water/fertilize, the best thing for a few plants is to setup a gravity-fed drip Irrigation system. I set one up for my 8 plants and could easily do more. I currently use a 55gal drum as the reservoir, and was doing to full drums twice per week during May-August and add fertilizer right to the tank. Drip irrgation is really the only way to grow the plants to their maximum potential.

I just put up 1.2 lbs of Centennials from my second years plants (probably could have been more, but work and kids get in the way of weeding).

 

[dropitlikesitshot]

Here are my pics of my Cascades from today. Picking every couple of days. Would like to trade rhizomes in the future from mature plant/s.

 

[bedman]

30oz wet dried down to 7.5oz. That's pretty spot on isn't it?

 

[mthompson]

30oz wet dried down to 7.5oz. That's pretty spot on isn't it?

They need to dry a bit more than that. You want them to be about 1/5th their wet weight. You are only at 1/4.

Your target weight is 6oz. or less.

 

[Helly]

Picked mine today. Technically second year plants but I had them in small pots until this year and didn't really get a harvest last year. My brewers gold did well. 3.75 lbs wet. Cascade was pretty weak, only got 6 oz.