Hey guys I'm thinking about growing hops, is it too late in the season?
drummstikk said:It's really never too late to plant.
You're in the Central Valley, right? If you don't expect hard freezes, then I suppose you could even plant in the middle of the winter. The rhizome would just lie dormant until the spring.
If you take the rhizome from a cool refrigerator to a frozen ground, I can see it having issues with cold damage because it hasn't had time to "harden". This is the process that plants use to pump cryoprotectants into their tissues in anticipation of winter. This is the only issue with the timing of rhizome planting that I'm aware of.
Can I grow if I have dogs in the yard
i have a dog, she chews and eats everything under the sun it seems. she has shown zero interest in my hop plants. she spends all day in the backyard where i have my cascade and centennial. over the past year i've had 3 different dogs over for play-dates, none of them paid any attention to the hops (except maybe peeing on them). i have 2-foot chicken wire around the plants mostly to protect from the lawnmower and from being stepped on.Can I grow if I have dogs in the yard
another topic with a lot of confusing information and disagreement. it's important for commercial farmers to cut the first growth because they want plants that are all the same size and all ready to harvest at the time time. in large monoculture fields, it also helps with disease control.Hey gents,
I planted all my Rhizomes last May and had great results for the first year. This is my first spring and I have them coming up like crazy. I've heard many people say that one should trim back the first that come up. Any suggestions? I've got two rhizomes per mound and anywhere from 4-15 shoots that are almost a foot tall. Thanks
i have 2-foot chicken wire around the plants mostly to protect from the lawnmower and from being stepped on.
there is a lot of disagreement over how dangerous hops are.
interesting. can you elaborate on what you mean by "popping up too early"? do you mean before the risk of frost has past? or is there any other reason to delay the bines?For homebrewers, it would makes sense if your hops are popping up too early in the year.
interesting. it's my understanding that it's the shortening length of day that makes the plants produce cones, not their size. thus, if they start early, they grow bigger and have more length from which to grow side-arms and hence cones. based on this, it would make sense to get them started on the earlier side, within reason. i see your point - january is way too early. here in maryland hops popped up in mid-april and are going gangbusters. hopefully that's not too early.If you were growing in San Diego, you may have bines popping out of the ground in January vs. April in the PNW or other northern states. If they come up to early, they will start to bud before they have developed side arms. That means you get a lot less cones per plant.
Sweetcell, Thanks for the trimming advice. I just trimmed all but the strongest 3-4 per bine. Anyway, I've got 25 mounds with two-three rhizomes in each (3 different varieties). Last year I had some sort of growth out of each mound. My chinook and cascade being the big producers.. As of right now, 10 mounds have plants over 6'. However, I have 8 mounds without even a bud popping out. Should I be concerned about those without anything coming up? Would it be safe to dig down and see if anything is going on? Thanks again
...
it's very unclear, as far as i can tell, if home growers should cut their first growth. we don't need uniformity among plants, since we typically only have 1 of each type of plant (and if you have more than one, does it really matter to you if columbus #1 needs to be harvest one week and columbus #2 is ready the next?). i am not cutting back the first growth on any of my plants... i don't see any advantage to doing it.
one thing you will want to do with second year plants is to eventually trim back the bines and keep only 4-6 of the healthiest per plant.
awesome, thanks for pointing that out:I just read a blurb from great lakes hops Facebook about "bull shoots". It describes some early shoots as being hollow and weaker.
i wonder if there are any other drawbacks other than being weaker. i wonder if they produce less?
I built 2 - 4x4 raised beds and had planned to plant 2 rhizomes in each along with tomatoes, cucumbers, and maybe some hot peppers. My goal was to put the hops on one end of the boxes that way I could make a trellis for them to climb on that spanned both boxes (they're like 2 feet apart) now I'm seeing the rhizomes should be a couple feet apart.
I'm wondering now that I know this, should I put them on opposite sides of the boxes? Would I still be able to plant the other stuff in the middles of the beds?
I was planning on building raised beds that are buried half way to keep roots from spreading to far and force water down to roots. Also to make weeding easy, I saw this in a video. I can't really afford the wood right now though so I am thinking about cutting the bottom of five gallon buckets and doing the same thing, burying them half way. I was hoping to get some advise from a pro on if this is a good idea.
What're some good hops to start to grow? I live in El Paso Texas , and I think I already missed the season due to the army _
Enter your email address to join: