Show off your 2012 Hops garden!

[KBrew75]

Spider mites ate mine

 

[SkyHighBrew88]

Took some rooftop shots today, my burrs are cone-n' up slowly. . These were of my Cascade plant which has reached about 15-16 feet in it's first year. Added some wood ash from the fireplace to the bottom of the plants to hopefully help with some yellowing and leaves dying on the lower 2.5ft of the plant.

 

[mthompson]

Here's mine. Four beds ~6 ft. wide, two plants per bed; wild, wild, Cascade, and Centennial. Wild ones were in large pots last year, Cascade and Centennial are new this year.

Twine runs from plants to top of garage (15 ft high, plus 6 ft diagonal), through eye bolts at the top and finally tied to center eye bolt near the ground.

 

[shotputman]

Here are my two cascade plants, they are first year I just put them in the mulch bed with no other additives (I've miracle growed a few times). Just starting to see buds and flowers, but they start at 8-10ft high. Is that normal??

 

[heyblinkin]

First year Chinook at about 14 feet and flowering.

 

[thos555]

This is my third season into my hop growing adventure. From left to right I have Mt Hood/Zeus (they got mixed up so I'll need to split them out next season), Cascade, Cascade, and Nugget. The cascades are in the closeup against my hand, I'll likely get a record yield from them this season, there are already mature cones. Its kind of hard to see in the pictures, but I have the plastic string running through eye bolts from the base of the trellis, up the side, out to the end, and then down to the plant at ground level. There's plenty of slack on the center post end which allows me to easily lower the bines and harvest only the ripe cones. This allows me to continually harvest for 4-6 weeks, a couple times a week. The posts are 16' 4x4s set 2 feet in the ground, the largest I could find in my area. The system works pretty well and allows for me to easily manage the whole system by myself.

 

[mthompson]

Here are my two cascade plants, they are first year I just put them in the mulch bed with no other additives (I've miracle growed a few times). Just starting to see buds and flowers, but they start at 8-10ft high. Is that normal??

Yes, the hop cones are mostly formed near the top of the plant.

 

[brian2can]

I'm up in New Jersey and picked 18 oz from one of my Cascade plants tonight. I will pick the other Cascade tomorrow. The one I picked still had burs on it. I just let it go wild and trim a few times. I hope to get 3 harvests from each plant.


This pick was from a month ago so from burr to full cone in 1 month:

Harvest 18 oz

 

[Stevo2569]

I'm up in New Jersey and picked 18 oz from one of my Cascade plants tonight. I will pick the other Cascade tomorrow. The one I picked still had burs on it. I just let it go wild and trim a few times. I hope to get 3 harvests from each plant.

This pick was from a month ago so from burr to full cone in 1 month:

I've read 6-8 weeks from burr to harvest. Ive got about three dozen big cones on each of 5 plants. All have a lot of lupilin. How do you know when there ready?

 

[brian2can]

Stevo
Well i saw a few were just falling apart. I kept on checking by squeezing and get that paper feel and spring back, but i thought they could get bigger. Some were 2 inches and some 1 inch. Then when i check today some were just falling apart. I have been taking 1 at a time and tearing apart and tasting, and they are awesome. So i picked 1 Cascade plant and got 18 oz.

 

[PariahVineyard]

It is typical for this to happen and you should pull those leaves off anyways. You don't want anything on the lower 3' of your bine.

Took some rooftop shots today, my burrs are cone-n' up slowly. . These were of my Cascade plant which has reached about 15-16 feet in it's first year. Added some wood ash from the fireplace to the bottom of the plants to hopefully help with some yellowing and leaves dying on the lower 2.5ft of the plant.

 

[SkyHighBrew88]

It is typical for this to happen and you should pull those leaves off anyways. You don't want anything on the lower 3' of your bine.

Glad to hear it's a typical thing to happen. We've had several days in the high 90s and a few over 100F and that had me concerned. They seem to be ok, just didn't want any of that yellowing to progress further up the plant. I'm new at this so thanks for your insight!

 

[cram]

Here's a couple shots of some hops grown in Southern California (N. San Diego County). The first pictures are of three second-year Chinook grown in large pots in a south-facing location. And the last ones, under the pine trees, are first year Cascade, on the east side of the house. Check out all the compost volunteers that came up with the hops! Tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, cilantro, beets, and squash.

I'll try to snap some pictures of the older plants soon. I plan to harvest some of the Chinook and Cascade to throw into the kettle today, so i wanted to snap a couple pictures before the first harvest. Not the best pictures but so it goes...

 

[cram]

I can't get the other Cascade pictures to upload at the moment--will try again later when I have more time...Here's the least exciting one with the compost volunteers. Pictures of hops, hopefully, to come.

 

[ingchr1]

Picture from today. The first year Cascades (right) have a good amount of burrs, second year Fuggles (left) has some burrs and the first year MT Hood (center) has nothing and is only a couple of feet tall (about what the Fuggle did last year).

 

[day_trippr]

I do contract design work from a second floor office in my home. Said office has its own slider out to the upper deck, and this is the view these days from just outside the slider.

Centennial to the left, Chinook to the right.

Cascade down the other end.

I'll definitely be picking hops this weekend. The Centennial is ready...

...as are the Cascade...

...but the crazy Chinook harvest is going to be spread out over many weeks to come.

The things went totally insane with so many flowers I couldn't believe it could turn them all into decent size cones, but there are many over two inches long already and they're all growing bigger by the day!

Ok. Back to work...

Cheers!

 

[runs4beer]

Here's my garden left to right goldings- fuggles (not doing so great)- Mt. Hood- cascade. Last year I did just cascade and had little to show for it. With help from JRems this year I think I'll have something to toss in the kettle. The figs look good too.

 

[BRONCOBREW]

Does Anyone have any of these hops:

 

[BRONCOBREW]

I do contract design work from a second floor office in my home. Said office has its own slider out to the upper deck, and this is the view these days from just outside the slider.

Centennial to the left, Chinook to the right.

Cascade down the other end.

I'll definitely be picking hops this weekend. The Centennial is ready...

...as are the Cascade...

...but the crazy Chinook harvest is going to be spread out over many weeks to come.

The things went totally insane with so many flowers I couldn't believe it could turn them all into decent size cones, but there are many over two inches long already and they're all growing bigger by the day!

Ok. Back to work...

Cheers!

Those Hops are Amazing......my Cascades are that last to mature out of 16 varieties that I raise. Where do you live? My Cascade Hops will not get that big till mid August.
I live in an area where they raised a lot of commercial hops and have get about a pound of dried hops per plant.

 

[GreenBoneBrew]

First year for them. Bought them as plants. Bamboo polls are working out great.


Hops by Rob Bone III, on Flickr

 

[camfeo]

The third year mystery hops (Mt. Hood I think?) have taken over the shop...
Nice burs all over the tops.
Six new first year varieties on the bamboo trellis; Willamette, Nugget, Centennial, Golding, Cascade and Liberty.

 

[Bradzukie]

First year cascades. 11 feet tall and full of new cones! I wasn't expecting this much this year. My centennial plant got weed whacked by the landscaping guy (who was fired shortly after). It is making a comeback but will not produce anything this year. The pics are of the cascades.

 

[Mysticmead]

this is my first year growing hops. So far my hops have exceeded my expectations. I have 1 Cascade, 1 Galena that I purchased from my LHBS (Brewmasters warehouse).. The Cascade has reached the end of the string at 22ft and has continued another foot past that. it is LOADED with cones and burrs. The Galena was a slow starter and has now hit 10 feet and is starting to set burrs. The three other rhizomes I got were from a friend. He wasn't 100% sure if they were Crystal or Ultra but these have taken off like crazy. 3 plants with 5-6 bines each have hit the top of the line at 25 feet (vertical and some diagonal) and they're loaded with cones as well. They have also set a LOT more burrs in the last week so I'll be getting a couple harvest out of these. If they're producing this well in year 1, I can't wait to see how well they do for years 2 and 3!

^^cascade looking down from second story deck. bine goes another 4 feet up

^^Mmmm Cascade goodness

Ultra/Crystal??

 

[FullDraw]

Coming along nicely. Maybe I'll even let a few cones on this first year.

 

[BRONCOBREW]

Hops from the beginning of June:

Poles are 16 feet high....4 varieties on each pole....2 plants of each variety.

 

[BRONCOBREW]

Hop Garden Layout:

My father has hist own hop garden next door....

 

[solbes]

Dang, you're going to be busy come fall time! Nice job

 

[BRONCOBREW]

Dang, you're going to be busy come fall time! Nice job

I share a lot with other local brewers.....especially when Hop prices get high.....

 

[david_42]

I think most of my hops are dead, after seven years of struggling. Weather in the coastal hills tends to be extreme and two cold, cloudy, damp summers in a row was too much for them. I'll be digging what's left up in the Spring and moving them to my new place. Everything we've planted at this house has done well.

 

[BRONCOBREW]

I think most of my hops are dead, after seven years of struggling. Weather in the coastal hills tends to be extreme and two cold, cloudy, damp summers in a row was too much for them. I'll be digging what's left up in the Spring and moving them to my new place. Everything we've planted at this house has done well.

That is a Bummer. I have friends in Texas that tried to raise hops. I sent them multiple rhizomes over the years. They finally gave up. Some areas in the country are great for raising hops, others not so good.

Like I said in an earlier post, I live 15 miles from commercial hop growers, so I live in the right area.