Growing Hops in Central Florida

[LostDogBeer]

I've seen a few posts on this topic with the thread, however, most are more than a couple years old. I've heard all kinds of opinions on the topic of whether hops can be grown in Florida, etc. I called FreshHops.com and they basically told me "don't bother." However, seems like some people have had success in the past, albeit, not the quantities or quality of hops that are typically grown in the northwest.

Question is: Anyone out there growing hops in Florida recently?

 

[LostDogBeer]

Well, I'm thinking that the lack of response means I may be one of the few to try growing HOPS in Florida. Still, I'm going to give it a go. Here's what I know:

A) Florida is not OPTIMAL for growing hops, but allegedly it can be done
B) Crop yields will be lower, plants need more care
C) Growing season is shorter than in other areas.

I ordered 4 rhizomes to start. 2 Cascade and 2 Centennial. I'm going to start them in planters. I will try to post a few pictures to track my progress.

 

[ArcaneXor]

It's tough but possible. I would say about 90% of people who have tried it have failed - mostly rhizomes rotting or getting chewed up by nematodes, very weak bines that break during wind gusts, etc.

I know some people who do get them to grow and actually get two harvests per year.

 

[Flboy]

Your timing was perfect for me. I was just about to start the same thread! I am located in the north east side outside of the greater Orlando area. where did you get your hops from? I agree, pots may be the only way to go.

 

[LostDogBeer]

I ordered the rhizomes from NorthwestHops.com - no specific reason I chose them over another company, just did a google search and they seemed to have good pricing and reviews.

Keep me updated if you go for it - I'll do the same.

All the best,

Phil

 

[mozart4898]

It seems like Cascade will grow for just about anyone anywhere, so I think you probably gave yourself about the best chance you have of success right there.

All I can tell you is the basics of hop growing - make sure they're in a well-drained location (or pot) but that they stay moist. They generally like full sun but having visited Florida in summer you might do better by giving them partial shade during the afternoon if you can manage that. Otherwise I'd say this - it's basically a weed. Don't overthink it. Make sure they get water but not too much, and that they get sun but don't let them burn up. And give them something to climb. My guess is, if you can manage that, you'll get hops.

I don't know if the ripening of the hop cones is dependent on temperature or day length but I suspect it's more of the latter than the former. I do know that central Florida gets cooler during winter but the hops may get "confused" if the vines are left up into winter and it stays mild (i.e. nights still consistently above freezing, which I believe your area would be). I'd suggest after harvest cutting the vines back all the way to the ground and continuing to cut back any growth they may produce until the following February/March, then letting them grow again. But I may be way off there. I don't have any applicable experience, just sharing my thoughts. Myself, I'm not sure if the ground has thawed where I am far enough down to let the hops actually sprout yet. I'm expecting to see the first tips break ground in the next week.

 

[LostDogBeer]

Thanks for the input. Right now I'm definitely planting on putting in pots. I downloaded a PDF on hop planting in Florida which I think will be helpful.

I will definitely try to keep this thread posted with pictures.


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[plusultra]

well what happened? I'm growing hops in psl florida. Well I should say I started growing them this year at the beginning of march.

 

[LostDogBeer]

The hop rhizomes should arrive today. Yesterday I did some work preparing the ground. Initially I had done most of the research and thought about using pots. However, the best I could find in the right size (20" or more) was pretty expensive. So, using a different method that I read about I am actually going to plant the rhizomes in the dirt.

Here are the items that I purchased. Total cost about $40

I prepared an area close to my fence where I plan to put up a trellis.

I put up some garden stakes so that I can keep my dog, Barley, out of the planting area. I think this is for safety but also he would probably be digging in their continually.

I dug 4 holes, each about 3' x 1.5'. They are each about 1.5' deep. I filled them with a mix of potting soil and composted cow manure.

 

[LostDogBeer]

While I was supposed to receive the rhizomes a couple of days ago the post office seems to have lost them. I don't know how long rhizomes will last in the mail. Anybody have any ideas?


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[LostDogBeer]

While I was supposed to receive the rhizomes a couple of days ago the post office seems to have lost them. I don't know how long rhizomes will last in the mail. Anybody have any ideas?


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[LostDogBeer]

So...after being lost in the mail for about 3 extra days the hops finally arrived from Northwesthops.com. This was not the fault of Northwesthops but the post office. Don't ask me why they sent it on a scenic journey except to make me worry about the viability of a live plant spending 3 extra days sealed up in an envelope. Anyway...

Here are the hops - I don't know how they are supposed to look but they look fine to me. Here's a pic:

I made 4 little mounds and planted the hops about 1" under the soil. There are many back and forth discussions on whether the hops rhizomes should be planted vertically or horizontally. The instructions from Northwesthops.com say to plant them "vertically" with the bine shoots pointing upward. So, that's what I did. Here they are planted and watered for the first time:

I'll post more updates when they start to grow. I still have to arrange a pole and some twine but I figure I have at least a few days to work on that.

 

[MattMCB]

I'm in Mount Dora and I tried some centennial last year. They actually grew pretty well, but needed to be watered often. Any time we don't get the afternoon thunderstorm and lots of rain. You need to go out and water the crap out of them. WATER WATER WATER. had a nice crop of first year hops and I didn't water them for a single day when I was out of town, killed them. Luckily a few other bines grew and I got a about a 1 gallon bag of hops out of it.

The other thing is try to keep them out of the direct afternoon sun. This is contrary to everything I read, but the direct afternoon sun here in Florida is to much for the plant. The angle and the heat will dry them out quickly and stunt their growth. Mine get direct sun in the mid morning until about 2-3PM, then we have a large maple tree that blocks the sun. They grew pretty well for the first year, better than I expected.

Talk to the guys at Sanford Home Brew, they did a really good job growing them last year and got enough to throw in a brew.

-Matt

 

[Flboy]

I'm in Mount Dora and I tried some centennial last year. They actually grew pretty well, but needed to be watered often. Any time we don't get the afternoon thunderstorm and lots of rain. You need to go out and water the crap out of them. WATER WATER WATER. had a nice crop of first year hops and I didn't water them for a single day when I was out of town, killed them. Luckily a few other bines grew and I got a about a 1 gallon bag of hops out of it.

-Matt

A trick I learned from way back for watering. Take plastic jugs, cut the bottom off, poke a few holes near the top, and bury half way, upside down. You keep this filled with water, or just fill when you water. Gets the water where you need it.

 

[chuckcomm]

I'm also in Central Florida and have been thinking of growing my own hops. Thanks for starting this thread I plan to start with cascade as well and am headed to the site you posted above to make my purchase, Next to prepare my growing area....

 

[LostDogBeer]

The other thing is try to keep them out of the direct afternoon sun. This is contrary to everything I read, but the direct afternoon sun here in Florida is to much for the plant. The angle and the heat will dry them out quickly and stunt their growth. Mine get direct sun in the mid morning until about 2-3PM, then we have a large maple tree that blocks the sun.

Thanks for the info. I am a little worried about the sun. I'm not sure how LNG the sun will be baking on them per day. I am thinking that if the location I picked for now is too much in the sun I could try agin somewhere else on my property. I'm enthused to see what the result will be.

Phil



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[MattMCB]

I don't have many pictures of the harvest, but here are the my centennials in June of last year. These are the ones who dried up and died because I didn't water them that one hot dry day in July. But like i said, they grew back and i got a decent first year florida harvest of them.

Cones starting to form

 

[LostDogBeer]

Thanks for posting the pictures. They look great. I'm hoping for good results. A friend of mine said he grew centennial over here and had good success as well. However, he didn't get more than a couple of seasons out of them.


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[LostDogBeer]

A trick I learned from way back for watering. Take plastic jugs, cut the bottom off, poke a few holes near the top, and bury half way, upside down. You keep this filled with water, or just fill when you water. Gets the water where you need it.

What kind of plastic jugs? Like milk containers or something else?

 

[LostDogBeer]

It's not much but the hops have broken ground. This is Cascade making a first appearance.




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[plusultra]

I've been growing my first hops in port saint lucie florida since late February. I got them from Michigan hop alliance and they were massive with crowns. I bought nugget, cascade and centennial. The cascade looked the weakest at first but it is whooping butt on the other 2 at about 12 feet tall. We'll see how it goes but so far so good. I really like citra hops but I read that you can not get the rhysomes. I researched it some more and found that if I buy fresh wet citra hops that I might be able to find some bines that I can treat and get to root. That is next on the list.

 

[LostDogBeer]

Plusultra, u must post a couple pics!


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[chaos99]

I live in Orlando and I'm in my 3rd year growing hops. I've had good success growing Cascade. It took 2 years for the vine to really take off. I just planted it in the ground with some potting soil and covered it with mulch. The second season I started using BGI CitrusGain 8-3-9 fertilizer. The vine really took off and was always deep green. I was so impressed that I planted two more vines late last year. Here's a pic of last years vine. It yielded about 4oz.

 

[plusultra]

I'm not sure how to pull up images from my files on here. Do u have to have them on something like photobucket? I just have them on my phone or computer. The bines are starting to grow out on the cascade as it has reached the top of my jute twine. I did add a vertical line to the top of the cascade to give it more room. I added osmocoate(sp) pellet fert and had some miracle grow that I add to the water. I have been watering 2x per week, about 1.5 gallons per pot. They get a mix of shade and sun all day.

 

[plusultra]

chaos99, did you get hops 1x or 2x for the year?

 

[chaos99]

Plusultra, I got close too 3x the yield in the second season vs. the first.

 

[LostDogBeer]

All 4 shoots are up. Only 1 week after planting. Here is one of the centennials.


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[plusultra]

chaos, what I meant to ask was what month did you pick them and was it more than once per year? Example: pick in june and November? I guess your are picking recipes that use those hops or are changing recipes to include them. That's my plan.

 

[chaos99]

I started picking in batches around September or so, about every other week. The bine continued to produce, albeit slowly, through October

 

[LostDogBeer]

Hops update: added some CitrusGain fertilizer today and also some pine straw for weed control etc. all four bines are now out and I will need to run my twine for them to crawl on tomorrow.




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[LostDogBeer]

Photo update. I added the twine for the nines to climb. They are spiraling on their own. Here's a cascade bine.



Here's the way I implement,enter the climbing twine. One horizontal line across the four plants with four vertical lines working toward the top of a 12' pole.




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[chaos99]

Looks great. One thing I learned the hard way, the bines get really heavy after a summer rain. Close to 20lbs wet for my bine last season. I had to reinforce the strength of the trellis after it broke a couple of times.

 

[LostDogBeer]

Thanks for the tip, chaos!


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[plusultra]

I doubled up the jute twine for the portion holding the lines up but used a larger diameter twine for them to grow up. I was speaking to a guy about growing hop and he said his friend had great success using sea minerals for fert. I just bought some online and will see if this makes them stronger and disease resistant as he said it would. I'll get some pictures up this weekend.

 

[Breadontap]

Wow, I am glad I came across this thread. Like most everyone here I thought I was alone in the attempt to grow hops in Central Florida.

I just started growing 2 Centennial and 2 Cascade Rhizomes that I got from morebeer.com last week.

I put them in 8 gallon buckets with a mixture of 50/50 potting mix and composte (all from Home Depot).

They are all doing great. I watered them really well right after planting then left them alone for 5 day (with no rain). I'm trying to get them to build the root structure first. So far I have at least 2 bines sticking their little heads up. One of the Centenials are already about 2" tall.

My plan is to keep them in the buckets which are filled to the top, then prune the leaves once they are tall enough to help with air circulation try and prevent fungis and rot.

 

[LostDogBeer]

Here's a little update on the progress of my hops plants. All four look pretty healthy, three of them of have climbed onto the twine. However one of the plants has four shoots growing instead of one. From what I've read I think I'm supposed to trim this back so one can grow more than the others. Any suggestions out there?




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[plusultra]

The threads that I had read say they want 3 and no more out of each plant.

 

[LostDogBeer]

It's interesting because the other three plants only have one shoot sprouted on each. They are obviously growing faster. I will trim the other soon but I'm almost tempted to let it go just to see what happens.


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[Breadontap]

Here is an update on mine. The one from far away is from today. I have them in the garage since it's supposed to rain the rest if the week. They are really liking the artificial 24 hr light.

The close up is from a couple of days ago. The centennial's are doing great and the cascade is catching up.

I have noticed the same thing. The fewer bines the faster the plant is growing. One cascade has 4 heads just barely sticking out if the soil and it is clear that it is the slowest. Most of 2-3 bines coming up.

I have read a few different thoughts on pruning back the bines. One is to only allow 3 to grow up and trim the rest. The other I believe was from a commercial grower, which was to let them all grow the first year and not worry about the plant yield. Just let it focus on developing a good root structure.

For this first year I'm just going with the second and hopefully will have strong plants next year that will really produce. I'm more interested in keeping them alive than getting a bunch of hops at this point.


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[LostDogBeer]

They look great. Keep us updated I'll do the same.


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