First go around with hops

[jdgabbard]

Well, I pulled the trigger last week on some Cascade rhizomes from Austin Homebrew, I saw the add while schilling the forums. Bought four of them for about $6-7 a piece plus shipping. Well, they came in today. So I went down and bought a bunch of planting soil, some top soil, and some gigantic containers. I don't have a place I'm committed to growing these in permanently yet...

Got the soil all mixed up with some extra manure, and just (9pm) got the hops laid in their mounds. They were fairly dry on receipt, so I gave them a fairly light watering to moisten the soil, and hopefully moisten them a little too.

Two of them already had small white-ish shoots popping up. One of those was about 3/4-1 inch long. The other two looked decent but had less than admirable roots on them. Hopefully in a week or two I'll start seeing the push to the surface.

Now I'm sitting here having a nice glass of porter, and relaxing after my labor of love. Wish me luck! Cheers!

 

[brewshki]

Did the same this Monday! One cascade and one willamette

 

[jdgabbard]

Good stuff! Hope both of ours work out well!

 

[jdgabbard]

Out of curiosity, I am trying to decide how to run my lines. I'm planning on keeping these on the south side of the house, although my roof slants to the north and south sides, so vertically, I only have about 10ft. I could do a horizontal line to the roof from a 8ft post, which would give it room. But I would like the ability to move these around if needed, they are container plants.

So thinking about how I would do this, I though about something this morning. Posts in the pots up to about 6-8ft, to a "T", then run the lines of two plants between each other, see picture for a better depiction. Do anyone see a problem with doing it like this?

 

[DurtyChemist]

If you attend Google University you'll find lots of options for growing hops in plants. A BYO article or youtube video had one person growing them up a 1x2 piece of lumber with an eyehole in the top. Rope was run from one side of the pot through the eye hole and down the other. As the bine grew close to the top this person would let some rope from the non growing side out and it would coil the bine up on the bottom of the pot so it's all in one nice pile come harvest time.

I like the look of the zig zap growing hop. 1 post in the pot with 3 arms attached horizontally and the rope goes up in a zig zag pattern.

I'm thinking of growing mine from the pot to an screw eye in the wood under the gutters. 1 story home should be good and since I have plans of a pergola over this area it should work well after my first year in pots.

I have two rhizomes in pots and two in the ground. I've seen a local grower pull his first years out of a pot and put them in a trash can. They were very root bound. I couldn't believe it. I'm also a first year grower and I was given 4 Cascade rhizomes so I'm interested to watch them grow.

 

[jdgabbard]

Yeah, I've seen various methods as well. My biggest concern is the weight of the bines. I don't really know how heavy they can get. So whatever type of structure I build that is one of my biggest concerns, can the weight of the container alone keep everything upright, or are they going to need assistance from something more permanently erected....

 

[DurtyChemist]

Yeah, I've seen various methods as well. My biggest concern is the weight of the bines. I don't really know how heavy they can get. So whatever type of structure I build that is one of my biggest concerns, can the weight of the container alone keep everything upright, or are they going to need assistance from something more permanently erected....

This makes two of us. I haven't ever seen anything saying the weight of the plant however if it's 1 lb of hops I can't imagine the entire bine weighs much more than that. I'm probably over guessing and saying it's a 30 lb weight at full growth but I will probably plan a 50 lb weight and use a small 3/8" metal screw eye from the big orange box.

 

[jdgabbard]

Yeah, I'm wondering if I shouldn't plan on using a 1/4" rope and plan on the structure being able to handle what the rope can handle. But I'm not seeing anything push through the ground yet, so I don't need to get too worried about it yet.

 

[jdgabbard]

Well, almost three weeks after planting, and I'm starting to get a little bit of green poking out of the soil! So far, only three of the four rhizomes are showing anything, the fourth may have been planted upside down....there was a little bit of it curling upwards and some little roots on top of the soil.

Plant one:
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1430086420.688801.jpg

Plant two, the best of the three:
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1430086448.871099.jpg

Plant three, just barely anything coming out:
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1430086479.721422.jpg

I was worried after a while, because these were pretty dry when they got to me, and we've had nothing but storms here in Oklahoma since I planted them. So I feared that either they were DOA, or root rot had set in from the extreme moisture. Guess I'm wrong and these things just find a way!

Now let's see if #4 develops!

I'm really not looking to get many hops off these this year. I have plenty of cascade pellets in the freezer. But I do want healthy plants that I can transplant next year (these are container plants this year). Also, I'm thinking about rooting the clippings and after they've developed strong roots transplanting into the local park. As a fail safe of course

Either way, hopefully in the next week or two I can start training these.