Turning backyard into hopyard

[Slenderman]

hey all,

I've got a patch of yard that was supposed to become a garden when we moved in to the house, but ultimately it sat fallow for 5 years. It's suffered abuses from dogs and cats and everything else that lives in suburban Mid-Cal.
It's got no irrigation and hasnt been tilled or fertilized or aerated in years.

How do I take this patch of god forsaken wasteland into something suitable for growing hops?

 

[Tchib]

Depends if you want organic or quick-fix really. I suppose one could plow it up and plant canes and lines and fertilize it with oil fractions and chemicals and produce lots of hops. But if you want to go green (and more delicious) don't plow it up! The soil takes years to develop it's own ecosystem which is naturally perfect for growing most anything. By plowing you destroy the fungus and bacteria cultures that hops need to grow healthy and soil to continue yielding nutrients. And your 'wasteland' sounds like it is perfect, if not a bit dry.

Start a compost system, it needn't be complicated, just two boxes covered in your garden, one for grass clippings and leaves, the other for table scraps and more 'juicy' garden waste.

First choose the spot you want, plenty of sunshine and soft loamy soil, lay a hose pipe tied off at one end over the intended patch and poke little holes in it so you don't have to water by hand. Lay canes or poles with line tied between them at picking height, you can get creative with your design at this point.

dig a 1'x1'x1' hole for every plant you want to grow, they will need atleast 4 square feet between them. Mix the soil removed with compost and fertilizer of your choice. Lay it back in the hole and water for a week.

Buy established seedlings or start your own seedlings indoors until they are strong enough to fight off bugs. then place them in your patches with a nearby cane for them to grab hold of.

Once they are in you should place a mulch of wood chips, grass clippings, rotting leaves over the soil around the base of the plant without directly touching the stem. This locks in moisture and nutrition and prevents little weeds stealing all your hops' soil.

Weed as necessary and water a little each day and they should shoot up faster than you have ever seen. First year the yield will be low but if you keep applying mulch and love the following years will give you better and better crops.

This is a very basic way to do it but if you want to go all 'serious' you should get a book on hops and gardening to realize the potential of your wasteland.

 

[TeeJo]

Can you get irrigation to it?

No water, no hops!

Unlike the eloquent Swede hoping to turn you into a hippy gardener, I would start with a round of watering, then go to town on the rows with a heavy duty tiller to loosen it up. Mold and bacteria in California hard-pan...maybe not so much...

Like as not, it will grow just fine without anything else, but if you can get a soil sample done, so much the better, to sort out what the soil may be lacking.

The plants don't care where they get their nutrients, just that they are available. The rest is mainly to make folks feel less guilt ridden about their existence. Your call.

Yer gonna need some trellis system or other. Lots choices ranging from strictly industrial to pretty decorative.

Lots of good info to be had in the links in the stickies at the top of the Forum. Adapt and scale the info to fit your circumstances.

TeeJo

 

[Slenderman]

Thanks for the input, homies.
I did the compost thing in a wheelbarrow, it was a stinky messy mess that needed too much time and effort for me.
Irrigation is easy to get, theres a 1" main line for a drip system within very close proximity.
As for the soil ecology, I get it, I spent a year in Cotati doing organic ag, but this is CA hard pack in the worst drought since anyone here has bothered to write that **** down, the only thing in the first foot of soil is spite and hatred.
Don't ask how but I got my hands on 5 gallons of H2H, it's compost rushed with enzymes and made liquid,needs dilution 10:1, so i'll have 55 gallons of the stuff.(info @ http://www.calsafesoil.com)
I've 2 centennial plants and 2 Mt. hood plants in airpots. They've had a rough go for a first year, they're about 5 feet tall and have yet to produce a single cone.(http://airpotgarden.com)

TLDR; TeeJo you mah boi, homie.

 

[ong]

Mulch over drip irrigation is your friend if you're watering in a drought!

 

[Slenderman]

Mulch over drip irrigation is your friend if you're watering in a drought!

Good tip, I've been hand watering thus far and every ounce counts.
Which is part of the reason why i want to move my plants to ground, the airpots have insanely high evapotranspiration rates.

 

[Tchib]

Alas, your soil type might well need all the help it can get. I don't take offence to being called a hippy gardener but I just do what works for me.
With just four plants it should be no problem to make a little patch and drip irrigate it. Place the pipes on or maybe under a layer of mulch, be sure it's not going to turn to soil to fast or it might get clogged.
The compost will take a few months to become useful fertilizer, I urge you not to give up and instead of a wheel barrow just make a box in the corner somewhere and fill it passively and forget about it until next season.
best of luck!
P.s. I assume you are certain that your plants are all Female?

 

[Slenderman]

Beats me, I got the rhizomes from the LHBS.