Comments, ideas, critiques, and suggestions welcome!
I had a bucket of rhizomes from hops believed to be the descendants of hops grown in the mid-1800s at the Potosi Brewery. Potosi, WI is the home of the National Brewery Museum, worth a visit if you get out this way.
They're of particular interest to me as my wife is a descendent of the original Potosi Brewery brewing family. I'd had some of these hops before, dehydrated, and I loved them. Sort of a cross between Cascade and either Saaz or Hallertau. At least that's how they presented to me.
Anyway, I have a friend with a farmette on the edge of town. He agreed to let me try to grow them there, in what in an earlier time was a stock yard. Given the cows and cattle had done their business there for decades, you can imagine how fertile that soil is.
I had about 40 of those rhizomes, though some looked sketchier than others. I planted them in Early April about 3 feet apart, two to a hole, with the intention of thinning them out if more than one grew in a spot. I dug about a 1-foot deep hole, mixed the soil up with some store-bought topsoil, added some bone meal, mixed it all up, then filled the hole and positioned the rhizomes about an inch deep. Where the rhizomes had a green bud on them, I positioned that facing up.
In the end, I only had about 7 of them actually grow. That seems to have corresponded to about how many had buds on them.
Some pictures below showing how I did it, which I'll annotate, but I was shocked to see these things take off. I've read and others have told me that in the first year you can't expect much from your crop, as the hops are establishing root structures and so on.
Well. That's not always true. I had more hops than I could use, far more. They went crazy, which I attribute primarily to the quality of the soil and the luck of the hop grower. That topsoil went down 3 feet and was the blackest, richest soil you can imagine. I was a little worried about drainage but the lot itself is slightly sloped, and there didn't seem to be much of an issue with that.
They all took off at different rates though at the end, by harvest, they were pretty similar.
I knew that I'd need something for them to climb; the best I could do was erect 12' 4x4 posts on either end of the hop bines and run a wire across the top while using binder twine as the descenders. I dug post holes 4 feet deep, put 8-foot 4x4s in the holes, added 3 bags of quickcrete in each hole, then filled them up. Once the concrete was set I bolted the 12-foot 4x4s to the ones set in the ground and I was set. I used eye-bolts at the top through which I passed the wire from which the binder twine dangled. That allowed me to tie the wire off at the bottom of the posts and would allow me to drop the lines when time to harvest.
As you can see below, I had to add a support in the middle; I hadn't anticipated them growing so much and becoming so heavy. In fact, the hops were so heavy that the 4x4 posts started bending in. I had to use some rachet straps connected to ground anchors to bring them back to vertical.
The only problem I had was my buddy called me one day in early July and noted that Japanese Beetles were munching away on my hop leaves. I bounced on over and holy cow! They were having a field day. He suggested some Sevin as a remedy and given it's approved for use on food crops, I sprayed the hops with that. It seemed to do the trick, they were gone in a week and I had no further trouble with them. Two months later I harvested them.
QUESTION: I trimmed the hop plants back in October, after allowing for much of the "juice" in the plants to flow back down to the roots. They're wintering right now, but I expect to see them go crazy by about mid-April. What kind of soil amendments or fertilizers should I use? Just add some more bone meal to the surface? Anything else?
Some pics. Early on I couldn't believe how fast they were growing:
The final "Hop Yard". Distance between the end posts is about 30 feet. You can see the ratchet straps I had to use to keep the hops from pulling the posts over toward the middle.
Another view; you can see how how heavy those hop bines are.
Lots of hop flowers. I knew so little about growing hops that I hoped these would turn into hop cones. They did.
There was just an ENORMOUS number of hop cones. I learned how labor-intensive it is to harvest those cones. I could get about 8 gallons of cones in about 90 minutes. I got faster, using a bucket strapped around my waist, into which I dropped the cones as I pulled them off the bines.
Half of my eventual harvest. So it ended up being about 15 or 16 gallons of hop cones, and I left more than that still on the bines. I should have notified my local beer club about this so they could have come and harvested some. Next year I will.
I dehydrated most of the hops and then put them in vacuum-sealed bags which are stored in my freezer:
Final result:
The REALLY final result; a simple SMASH bittered with Yakima Valley's Hop Shot, Maris Otter, Potosi Hops for flavor and aroma near the end, and S-04. Tasty beer for something so simple. I learned the hard way with whole dehydrated hops that I need to use hop socks with them, otherwise I'll clog my pump and counterflow chiller.
Any comments or suggestions great appreciated!
I had a bucket of rhizomes from hops believed to be the descendants of hops grown in the mid-1800s at the Potosi Brewery. Potosi, WI is the home of the National Brewery Museum, worth a visit if you get out this way.
They're of particular interest to me as my wife is a descendent of the original Potosi Brewery brewing family. I'd had some of these hops before, dehydrated, and I loved them. Sort of a cross between Cascade and either Saaz or Hallertau. At least that's how they presented to me.
Anyway, I have a friend with a farmette on the edge of town. He agreed to let me try to grow them there, in what in an earlier time was a stock yard. Given the cows and cattle had done their business there for decades, you can imagine how fertile that soil is.
I had about 40 of those rhizomes, though some looked sketchier than others. I planted them in Early April about 3 feet apart, two to a hole, with the intention of thinning them out if more than one grew in a spot. I dug about a 1-foot deep hole, mixed the soil up with some store-bought topsoil, added some bone meal, mixed it all up, then filled the hole and positioned the rhizomes about an inch deep. Where the rhizomes had a green bud on them, I positioned that facing up.
In the end, I only had about 7 of them actually grow. That seems to have corresponded to about how many had buds on them.
Some pictures below showing how I did it, which I'll annotate, but I was shocked to see these things take off. I've read and others have told me that in the first year you can't expect much from your crop, as the hops are establishing root structures and so on.
Well. That's not always true. I had more hops than I could use, far more. They went crazy, which I attribute primarily to the quality of the soil and the luck of the hop grower.
That topsoil went down 3 feet and was the blackest, richest soil you can imagine. I was a little worried about drainage but the lot itself is slightly sloped, and there didn't seem to be much of an issue with that.They all took off at different rates though at the end, by harvest, they were pretty similar.
I knew that I'd need something for them to climb; the best I could do was erect 12' 4x4 posts on either end of the hop bines and run a wire across the top while using binder twine as the descenders. I dug post holes 4 feet deep, put 8-foot 4x4s in the holes, added 3 bags of quickcrete in each hole, then filled them up. Once the concrete was set I bolted the 12-foot 4x4s to the ones set in the ground and I was set. I used eye-bolts at the top through which I passed the wire from which the binder twine dangled. That allowed me to tie the wire off at the bottom of the posts and would allow me to drop the lines when time to harvest.
As you can see below, I had to add a support in the middle; I hadn't anticipated them growing so much and becoming so heavy. In fact, the hops were so heavy that the 4x4 posts started bending in. I had to use some rachet straps connected to ground anchors to bring them back to vertical.
The only problem I had was my buddy called me one day in early July and noted that Japanese Beetles were munching away on my hop leaves. I bounced on over and holy cow! They were having a field day. He suggested some Sevin as a remedy and given it's approved for use on food crops, I sprayed the hops with that. It seemed to do the trick, they were gone in a week and I had no further trouble with them. Two months later I harvested them.
QUESTION: I trimmed the hop plants back in October, after allowing for much of the "juice" in the plants to flow back down to the roots. They're wintering right now, but I expect to see them go crazy by about mid-April. What kind of soil amendments or fertilizers should I use? Just add some more bone meal to the surface? Anything else?
Some pics. Early on I couldn't believe how fast they were growing:
The final "Hop Yard". Distance between the end posts is about 30 feet. You can see the ratchet straps I had to use to keep the hops from pulling the posts over toward the middle.
Another view; you can see how how heavy those hop bines are.
Lots of hop flowers. I knew so little about growing hops that I hoped these would turn into hop cones. They did.
There was just an ENORMOUS number of hop cones. I learned how labor-intensive it is to harvest those cones. I could get about 8 gallons of cones in about 90 minutes. I got faster, using a bucket strapped around my waist, into which I dropped the cones as I pulled them off the bines.
Half of my eventual harvest. So it ended up being about 15 or 16 gallons of hop cones, and I left more than that still on the bines. I should have notified my local beer club about this so they could have come and harvested some. Next year I will.
I dehydrated most of the hops and then put them in vacuum-sealed bags which are stored in my freezer:
Final result:
The REALLY final result; a simple SMASH bittered with Yakima Valley's Hop Shot, Maris Otter, Potosi Hops for flavor and aroma near the end, and S-04. Tasty beer for something so simple. I learned the hard way with whole dehydrated hops that I need to use hop socks with them, otherwise I'll clog my pump and counterflow chiller.
Any comments or suggestions great appreciated!
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Once a couple of deep frosts had set in I lopped everything down to grade, then when the spring thaw came around I chucked veggie garden pellets around the crowns and raked them in a bit before a good watering. No big whoop, really. When the first round of shoots popped up to around 5~6 inches I sheared them all down to grade, then picked the best 4 of the next round...
