Just getting started..

We have been homebrewing for about a year now. Last year, we bought 26 acres to try and grow our own hops. We're in central PA and planted 150 rhizomes this past Spring. 50 Nugget, 50 Columbus and 50 Cascade.

We used trees from around our property to make the posts. The shortest post/tree was 18' and after setting them we got about 14' 8" posts out of the ground.



We used eye hooks screwed into the top of the post and strung the wire with 1/4" braided steel wire across the top. It's anchored to 4 foot earth anchors on each side of the run which is 150' down each row. We then used a potato (middle buster) plow to make a trench on each side of the row and planted into those rows.



This the whole area after it's all been planted, the twine is up, and the plants are starting to grow..





And a sample plant..



This photo is from about 2 weeks ago. We have some that are now almost 3-4 feet tall and have installed drip irrigation.

This is our first year/first attempt. We're feeling pretty confident.. so far, things are going pretty well. Any advice or words of wisdom would be great!

Nice! Great idea using the trencher to get your furrows set for planting. What species of trees are you using for poles? Around here people swear by black locust as being the best for longevity.

I was looking at your second to last picture and couldn't tell if you had any anchor lines perpendicular to your runs. Depending on how bad your winds get you might want to think about putting a few cross lines that anchor perpendicular to your runs just to give you some extra stability.

Great pictures! Good luck with your venture.

Glad to see a hop farmer in Central PA. Have you contacted any of the many local micro/nano breweries offering them hops for sale? Just curious. I've always toyed with starting a small scale hop farm in the area. I have two standing invitations for an acre or two of land to get started from both sides of my in laws. They both have access to a stream for irrigation purposes, and both farms are currently being farmed.

We really couldn't be selective with which trees we used since we have mostly farm land. Most are hard woods and should last a few years. The end posts almost killed us when we put them up, they are probably a ton a piece. I would love to get some black locust but they don't grow much around here. When we plant next year the state forest said they will supply some trees for us at a minimal price, I think yellow pine is what he said but don't quote me on that.

I was thinking about anchoring down the end posts but wanted to see how this worked out first. There is a nice wind block on the east and south side of the hops and one pretty close to the west side so I am hoping we will be okay.

We met a local guy here in Halifax who has 200 hops and will be working with him to sell our hops once we have a supply. We plan on planting more next year so I would like to talk to Troegs to see if they would be interested.

Snevey, you should just dive into it. It isn't very difficult (not yet at least) and is fun actually since we planted them mainly to have fresh hops for us and our friends.

Nice to see you using the resources you already have.....definitely a great way to keep costs down. Yeah, black locust is a pain to find. We had a few huge thunderstorms come through our area last summer and take out a lot of forest land, I have been meaning to ask some of the logging companies who have been clearing slash to see if they come across any black locust in their cleanup efforts.

I would imagine you will be OK with the wind. I have just gotten really paranoid since last summer the winds were killer (literally) and this spring we have already had at least a half dozen or more storms come through with 50+ mph winds. Have heard some horror stories of trellis collapses.

Just a thought to try and get some mulch around the plants to help with the weed control. Nice setup.

I will probably take your advice and put in at least one guy wires one the end posts. I don't feel like putting posts up again this year.

These weeds are horrible. It was an unused section of the farm for many years and the soil is very rich but the weeds grow about 4-5 feet tall and harden off after about a month of growing. I'm not sure what they are but I want to put down straw to suppress them, and I hope it will stop them. I have to wait for the farmer to harvest some first. We also looked at getting mushroom soil but the cheapest i can get it delivered is $10 a yard and I have to get 55 yards at a time.

Thanks for the feedback!

Check with a local landscaper for grass clippings... Put those nice abd heavy...

I have two questions that you might be able to help us out with.

1. We are debating ordering the last of the rhizomes from a western hopfarm and planting them in pots until next year. We would then offer them as 2 year old hops next year. Anything we don't sell we would plant in our hop field and would have a head start on the season since they would be in their second year already. Does anyone have any insight on this?

2. The rhizomes we bought this year aren't growing very tall. About 5-8 plants are over 5 feet and most of the rest are under 2 feet. Is this normal for first year hops? I am concerned that the tiny rhizomes we received are a direct cause of the short vines.

We went ahead and ordered rhizomes late in the season. Instead of in the ground, we planted them in these pots. We planted them last Tuesday and they're already growing. We plan on selling them and whatever doesn't sell, we will add to our hopyard. The hopyard is pictured below. Besides all the weeds, they seem to be growing pretty well.

Our total inventory includes the following types:

In pots: Centennial, Cascade, Mt. Hood, Galena, and Magnum.

In the hopyard: Centennial, Nugget, and Columbus.

Lookin' good for year one. Remember there may not be muchabove ground but underground those roots are getting established. Our 1st year were only about 4 feet tall and we got a small paint bucket for our harvest on 400 plants. This year everything is over 10 feet now and looking great. Just sprayed for powdery mildew (a sodium bicarb/soap mixture) it's not bad but hoping to get ahead of it. Also installed some drip tube to irrigate. Will post some pics soon.

I'd like to see those pictures. I haven't had any disease/fungus yet this season but the Jap Beetles were getting pretty bad.

The Mt. Hood in the pots are taking off. I'm sure I'll have full hop plants by the end of the year. If I don't sell them (probably won't get many sold this year), I'll put them in a trench and put mulch over them for the winter.

Drip irrigation is a must for hops. I could imagine hand watering all of them almost every day.

I'd like to get enough off them this year to make a freshhop beer. I've never had freshhops so it would be fun.

Season is going well for the 1st year. Some plants have grown 14' and some have grown 5' or so. We'll get plenty of hops this year for home brewing. Probably won't have a lot for sale. All in all, this is a fun hobby in comparison to growing grapes which has been more work than fun with the drought we are in.

Some pictures:

Harvested this last weekend. Wasn't very much, but it's our first year. Dried some and made an IPA and then wethopped it with some fresh hops.





Next year we'll have way more than we'll know what to do with. Especially since we started some magnum, mt. hood, galena, centennial and more cascade in pots this year.

If anyone is looking for any of those varieties, let me know.

Got a load of trees in to use as poles for our expansion.



We spent part of Saturday prepping some of the logs for poles. Check it out at CentralPennHops.com

I'm new to the blog and looking to start growing my own hops here on the eastern shore of lake Ontario in northern NY. I'm fascinated with your set up. Seems everything I have seen is trying to be so high tech that it is almost a daunting task. Did you use simple baling twine for runners or is there something better ? I'm going to plant just 10 rhizomes for now. Hope to get bigger. Would love to take a road trip and see your hop yard and pick your brain.

We did use baling twice for the bines to grow up. If you use the W clips and put it into the ground it will rot off but not usually before the bine grows on it and then you don't have to worry about it rotting off since the bine will keep it attached to the ground. We had 2 out of the 150 come off from the top wire during the first year so I'm not sure how much the extra weight this year will affect the baling twine.

We welcome anyone who wants to come visit. You might be able to find someone closer to you visit though. You're looking at a long drive from Northern NY to Central PA. Just me a PM if you decide you want to make the trip.

Where are you guys at in Pa? I'm in Carlisle.

I live in Harrisburg but the property is in Halifax. You can google map 596 Harman road and it will get you close but it isn't the property. They haven't figured out where the address yet is guess?

I have been up to his farm, Well worth the trip.

Day one of putting in the extension of the hop yard. After almost tipping the material handler with the first tree we got off to a better start and got all of our posts in and set besides the end posts. They will be set tomorrow. Rhizomes planted before Sunday (fingers crossed). I'll post more pictures once you can tell we did more work ;-)

Wow dude looks great. I need to stop up, Maybe this weekend need to teach the girl how to drive a 5 speed.

PariahVineyard said:

Day one of putting in the extension of the hop yard. After almost tipping the material handler with the first tree we got off to a better start and got all of our posts in and set besides the end posts. They will be set tomorrow. Rhizomes planted before Sunday (fingers crossed). I'll post more pictures once you can tell we did more work ;-)

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Hey man. Looks like ur getting it rolling. Ill keep you posted on twine. Looks like it actually ispushed back another week

I started a new thread here for this topic. The title of this just didn't fit anymore.