My hops garden

[sweetcell]

Are you planning on cutting your back now or are you just going to let them sprout all over the place?

i've been doing a lot of research on whether or not home-growers should cut back first growth and opinions seem mixed. there are very good reasons why commercial growers should do it (ensure even growth, disease control) but for us little guys who have a few plants that we can tend to individually... there are arguments for and against. at this point i'm leaning towards not cutting. well, at least not all of them. i'll let them grow for another week, pick out the 4-6 strongest bines, and cut down the rest.

 

[sweetcell]

all of my plants are up. newport is clearly in first place, sterling is #2, centennial and cascade competing for third. santiam and nugget are laggards, but are up.

1. newport
2. nugget
3. santiam
4. sterling

 

[sweetcell]

5. cascade
6. centennial

edit: i swear the plants grew overnight. i had a glance at them as i left for work this morning and they all looked taller than the pix. crazy.

 

[stonebrewer]

NICE! Looks like a bumper crop so far! Hope we have the kinda hop loving weather we had last year. All of your hops look to be about a week ahead of schedule of mine, which is weird since we only live about 3 miles apart...I checked mine again this AM and it was a few inches taller than last night. Should take daily pictures for a while and do a time lapse on them.

 

[stonebrewer]

A fox got into my hop yard and dug up my new rhizomes (cascade and centennial). DOH! Replanted them but not sure if they are going to be okay or not as the centennial really dried out. Will post pics of my gals in the next day or two. Columbus is out of control!! Still thinking it might be a good idea to cut her back some. Sweetcell you got a summary of pros and cons of that yet? Would be nice to weigh them...

 

[stonebrewer]

So after one week this is how much my Columbus has grown! Compare to the picture one page back...

 

[sweetcell]

that's a sweet looking columbus!

Sweetcell you got a summary of pros and cons of that yet? Would be nice to weigh them...

we can talk about it in person, but in a nutshell i haven't found a convincing reason why the home-grower should hack off all the new growth. personally i'm not going to cut all the first growth.

however, i am trimming my plants back. although i'm planning on letting 4-6 bines per plant grow to full length, in the short term i'm keeping 10-12 of the strongest growth. i will cut back to 4-6 in a week of so. no use growing 20+ bines when the majority of them aren't going to be kept anyways.

with that in mind: stonebrewer, looks like your columbus could use a haircut

 

[stonebrewer]

So after 5-6 weeks where I have been mostly in Hawaii, got back this week and took a quick peak in the ol' hops garden. I have fully developed cones on some of my bines!! What the heck! Bines are as tall as my flag pole and still reaching for the sky (queue Jimmy Hendrix). Looks like it is going to be a bumper crop this year with 6 inches of rain in the last month a great sun the rest of the time. Happy harvesting all!

 

[sweetcell]

I have fully developed cones on some of my bines!! What the heck! Bines are as tall as my flag pole and still reaching for the sky (queue Jimmy Hendrix). Looks like it is going to be a bumper crop this year with 6 inches of rain in the last month a great sun the rest of the time. Happy harvesting all!

yup. half of my plants are way ahead of the curve, the other half are in what i would consider a normal stage of development. for the half that already have cones, i'm thinking i might get 2 harvests.

 

[VegasJ]

Thread bumping here if OP is still around.

How did using the flag pole workout? Is that a telescoping pole?

 

[stonebrewer]

Thread bumping here if OP is still around.

How did using the flag pole workout? Is that a telescoping pole?

Not sure who you are asking, but it worked great for me and it was telescoping. Only issue I had was wind once the bines got huge. Bent the pole twice and I had to cut its length. Ended up adding guy lines this year and no issues after doing that. Here's my crop (10 gallons, drying so not sure of weight yet):

 

[stonebrewer]

So that ended up as about 3 pounds of mixed hops (Columbus, Cascade, Centennial, Mt. Hood, Nugget, Sterling, Willamette). I was on travel and missed the first harvest, as some of the bines (Columbus, Nugget) could have been picked twice. Not bad, none the less. The hops also climbed up a couple of fences, so there was more production because of that. Need to fit in a harvest type ale soon...cheers!

 

[murphyslaw]

Stonebrewer, great to see you have so much success! I'm planning on growing two or three varieties in Silver Spring come this spring.

 

[stonebrewer]

murphyslaw: It really is hard to screw up with hops. As long as the varieties you pick do well at your latitude, you should be fine. I did not attend to mine at all this year and missed the initial picking and still got a nice crop to add to a beer or three. Japanese beetles were horrid this year, but the girls hung on and made lotsa cones! If you want some rhizomes to plant, let me know. I have an easy trick to make as many plants as I want...just let a few extra bines grow, when they get a few feet on them, dig back until you get a few inches of rootlets, cut the bine, plant it...instant hop plant! Cheers!