First year grower - Hops ripped out of ground!

[nimo23]

I live in Central Ohio, and I eagerly planted my six rhizomes in early May and they were poking out of the ground within a week of planting. I built raised garden boxes for them, in order to try to isolate the root structure and contain the hops. Well, after being in the ground for about two weeks, I came outside one morning to see the rhizomes completely dug out of the ground and chewed to pieces. As you can imagine, I was shocked and horrified.

So my question is, what animals would be drawn to hops as predators? In my area there are opossum, moles, rabbits, and many neighborhood cats around. The odd thing is that about ten yards away from the hop beds I have two 5x10 garden boxes full of flourishing vegetables, which have been completely untouched. I was able to scramble and find a couple more rhizomes on line and have received them, but I am hesitant to plant them without a plan to ward off the predator(s). I was thinking of doing chicken wire around the bed, at least until the bines have grown a few feet. Does anyone have any additional thoughts or insight on how to proceed?

 

[aryoung1980]

I'm curious about this myself. I live in Milwaukee, WI and a few days after I planted my rhizomes they were dug up. I did notice an opossum walking around the neighborhood lately. Maybe that's our culprit.

 

[heckels]

My dogs tend to like to chew up plants so when I planted hops last years wrapped some large tomato cages with chicken wire. It worked great.

 

[Hop_Hero]

What type of fertilizer did you use? The animal could have beer drawn to the smell of manure

 

[nimo23]

What type of fertilizer did you use? The animal could have beer drawn to the smell of manure

I used a blend of top soil and manure, which is the same mix used in my other garden beds. There is a dachshund that lives next door, I don't see it in my yard but that is a possibility. Whatever got to these it seems was drawn to these rhizomes. All six were dug up, and nothing else was disturbed around the area.

 

[nimo23]

My dogs tend to like to chew up plants so when I planted hops last years wrapped some large tomato cages with chicken wire. It worked great.

Love this, I think I'll do the same with my new rhizomes. Thanks for the pic.