My first post on homebrewtalk and rather than start a new thread, will just add on here since it seems topically relevant.
First, new to growing hops, though I'm an avid gardener in western PA. Bought chinook and cascade at a local garden supply in early May and planted them in large grow bags at ground level and am training them up the side of my deck/porch with a total height of about 20 feet. After reading a bunch of posts, it seemed like this would be more than adequate for first year hops grown in pots. The chinook are now well over the top of my roof (20-25 feet in 1 ½ months) and the cascade has sent out 4 bines, most of which are 3-10 feet high.
1) These babies are going to keep gaining height for another month or so before they put energy into hops, right?
2) For those that let them grow crazy in a tangle, how hard is it to pull the tangle down? I'm kind of worried they will just grow over this roof and it will be very difficult to pull them down, especially since there are some cables running along this roof.
3) For those that trim the main shoot, what do you do? Just cut it with clippers? Will this make more lateral shoots and therefore more hops?
4) How big do those lateral shoots grow? I have a few that are now a foot long and they don't seem to be stopping. Should I just tangle them back onto the main twine?
Sorry for all of the questions, but I can't find the pdfs on growing hops that people keep referencing in the old threads (they've been taken down) and the chinook is just taking over the world.
Convinced that Jack and the beanstalk was really written about a hop plant.
Thanks!