Where do you get the hopps plants to start off?
Growing Hops in planters
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JDoubleDuBB
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Northern Brewer and places like www.freshops.com have hop rhizomes in stock and ready to ship right now. Tis the season!
Greenbudobeer
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I didn't want to deal with my crappy clay dirt so I made my boxes and trellis into one so it could be mobile with it was growing. Took a lot of time and a lot of money (cedar is expensive,200$) but I really like how the turned out. I plan to take a couple out to my buddy's house when he gets out of the hospital( 75% of his body was burnt when a 55gallon drum of acetone blew up in his face) so he can have something to look forward to.
Box is 20 in. in x 20 in 2ft tall
trellis is 8 foot from the top of the box and its span is 8 ft
I'm hopping for short, happy, bushy plants. I've got teamaker, cascade, Chinook, and mt hood going in them.
Box is 20 in. in x 20 in 2ft tall
trellis is 8 foot from the top of the box and its span is 8 ft
I'm hopping for short, happy, bushy plants. I've got teamaker, cascade, Chinook, and mt hood going in them.
I live in Florida. I would like to plant then in the ground, but the soil where I live is very sandy and dry. Would it better to plant in pots or in the ground? I'd rather plant in the ground, but if everyone recommends not doing so, ill reconsider...
MaltedBayerl
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Dig a hole and fill it with a good planting mix.
DisturbdChemist
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how far down do you plant them? I'll got some in and need to research more how to take care of them
fayderek14
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I think im gonna try to plant some rhizomes in planters within the next few weeks. Besides the rhizomes and the half barrel what else should I be buying? Is there a certain soil that is ideal? So I need anything to keep the pests off of the bines?
Can you train the vines onto SS wire? I am in FL, have a great location for morning sun, afternoon shade, and 30' to eaeves on roof. Want to use pulleys, with SS wire, and as they train up the wire, will lower as needed to keep off the roof, as well as to harvest. I have my half barrel type planters ready, and eye bolts on the eaves. I need some pulleys and some wire. Twine I fear will never survive more than one season and I do want to get onto a 30' ladder.
Ay suggestions?
TD
Ay suggestions?
TD
JDoubleDuBB
Active Member
TrickyDick said:
Get some of the wire with the rubber/plastic sheath on it. That might work better.
FuzzeWuzze
I Love DIY
I thought of doing that myself, but quite a few people discouraged lowering the plant. For one your going to end up with a big rotten mess of hops on the ground(or in your planter) and that in lowering it down, you would likely snap or crack the bine at the bottom from all the weight coming down...essentially killing that bine for the season.
My eaves are only 17', so i am planning on running my wire up through the eye bolt and back down in a V. When they get to the top, ill have to get on the ladder again and train the bines back down towards the ground...or just let them bundle up at the top if they dont make it up over my gutters.
FuzzeWuzze said:
I am planning to mostly do it the lowering for harvesting. I've got nearly 30 feet of vertical space to eaves. More if I pull the planters away from the house! DOH, gonna be hard to move them now full of wet dirt 6x64qt bags. I will not be getting onto any ladder. I would sooner have my kids do it and catch them if they fall. Being kids however they are going to be more agile, light and would have fun probably.
But you raise an interesting point. Will they grow downward??
Also, I think I decided to use the pulleys to connect a rod on either end with some SS wire to the pulleys, then use twine to tie to the rod to the planters
TD
Also those cedar or redwood nursery boxes work great...sometimes you can find them on the cheap or free when someone buys a tree that comes in it, plants it in the ground, and doesn't need the nursery box anymore. Wine barrels look nice and are the right size for growing hops but they eventually will rot out.
From my experience hop bine won't grow down or be trained to grow down. I let my bine grow about a foot over the top and then wrapped it going down a parrellel cable. The bine just turned around and grew back up now there is a big ball of bine tangled at the top of the trellis. Just my experience.
I did something just like this. Seemed to work well will let the hops get establisged until I can find a more permanent home. Let me know if you want more details.
pumpkinman2012
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I'm a first year grower, I planted my rhizomes in 20 gallon pots, these are the size that nurseries use to transport trees.
As a new hops grower, I made the mistake of letting too many bines grow, although the cones are smaller then they should be, there are plenty of them. Currently the bines have traveled up about 16 ft.
As a new hops grower, I made the mistake of letting too many bines grow, although the cones are smaller then they should be, there are plenty of them. Currently the bines have traveled up about 16 ft.
Alaskan_Brewer
New Member
This is an older thread, but I'm hoping to get some life out of it... I've had cascade growing for three years, and haven't had much luck. For the last two years the plant has been in a half whisky barrel, and I probably didn’t water or fertilize enough so the yield was weak. This year I was going to dig for rhizomes, and didn't find any, lots of shoots coming out of the ground, but nothing else growing with eyes (nothing that looked like the pictures online).
I was going to split the plant, and put it directly into the ground around my house to treat the roots better, but then remembered that I've got a 70 year old home and the dirt at the foundation is almost surely leaded. I assume hops would absorb some of the lead from the soil, and would then be unusable in brewing (I use enough hops and drink enough homebrew that I would surely be poisoned)... so back to the containers.
I've currently got a crown with a dozen or so shoots all standing about 4" out of the dirt. I'm thinking about splitting the crown in two and planting in two sides of a horse trough (which might be deeper than the whisky barrel).
I think part of my problem was also not thinning the plants as they grew, does anyone know the best way to do this?
I was going to split the plant, and put it directly into the ground around my house to treat the roots better, but then remembered that I've got a 70 year old home and the dirt at the foundation is almost surely leaded. I assume hops would absorb some of the lead from the soil, and would then be unusable in brewing (I use enough hops and drink enough homebrew that I would surely be poisoned)... so back to the containers.
I've currently got a crown with a dozen or so shoots all standing about 4" out of the dirt. I'm thinking about splitting the crown in two and planting in two sides of a horse trough (which might be deeper than the whisky barrel).
I think part of my problem was also not thinning the plants as they grew, does anyone know the best way to do this?
If you use the horse trough, just be sure to drill holes for drainage. The holes should be large and numerous enough so that roots will not clog them up. I find it helpful to elevate containers off the ground an inch or two--doing so helps avoid competing roots from working their way up your planters and allows you to better monitor watering and drainage issues.
If you were to cut a section of your plant that contains both a growing shoot and a section of root, then the likelihood it will grow into its own plant is high. The shoots alone will grow most of the time. (You can also pinch off a growing tip and bury 3/4 of the shoot horizontally and the buried portion will start to root and then you can cut that section off in a couple weeks and use that to start a new plant.) If there are in fact a dozen or so shoots, then you can probably divide it in more than two pieces if you are trying to expand the hop yard.
As far as thinning the plants, I like to choose between two and four bines per crown (two for a younger plant and four or more for a monster, established plant) and then cut back the rest at that time and as new ones come up. It can be a chore to keep up with all the shoots, but it's worth it in that the chosen ones will likely go higher, have more lateral growth, and yield more. When choosing the bines, I tend to look for the thickest ones with the most distance between leaf nodes. Generally, I want the three to hit the lines at roughly the same time, so they can grow up the lines together. If one gets too much of a head start, the others tend to get tangles a bit in the vegetation from the lead bine. It doesn't always work out where you have three perfect candidates all at the same time, though.
Also, think about where you are growing the hops and how much sun does it get during the day, the more sun, the better. They are hungry and thirsty plants. In a well-draining container, it's almost impossible to over-water hops. Hope this helps.
If you were to cut a section of your plant that contains both a growing shoot and a section of root, then the likelihood it will grow into its own plant is high. The shoots alone will grow most of the time. (You can also pinch off a growing tip and bury 3/4 of the shoot horizontally and the buried portion will start to root and then you can cut that section off in a couple weeks and use that to start a new plant.) If there are in fact a dozen or so shoots, then you can probably divide it in more than two pieces if you are trying to expand the hop yard.
As far as thinning the plants, I like to choose between two and four bines per crown (two for a younger plant and four or more for a monster, established plant) and then cut back the rest at that time and as new ones come up. It can be a chore to keep up with all the shoots, but it's worth it in that the chosen ones will likely go higher, have more lateral growth, and yield more. When choosing the bines, I tend to look for the thickest ones with the most distance between leaf nodes. Generally, I want the three to hit the lines at roughly the same time, so they can grow up the lines together. If one gets too much of a head start, the others tend to get tangles a bit in the vegetation from the lead bine. It doesn't always work out where you have three perfect candidates all at the same time, though.
Also, think about where you are growing the hops and how much sun does it get during the day, the more sun, the better. They are hungry and thirsty plants. In a well-draining container, it's almost impossible to over-water hops. Hope this helps.
Alaskan_Brewer
New Member
cram,
thanks for the suggestions. I ended up getting a second whisky barrel instead of the horse trough - figured the roots might tangle with two plants in the same container. When I pulled my hops up they didn't seem root bound, so I'm pretty sure my problem was watering/ fertalizing. the planters live in a spot in the lawn which is south facing, and gets pretty much all day direct sunlight. Last year they were going gangbusters during the spring, then petered out in the summer. I always forget to water, though - you figure living in Seattle you'd get enough rain, but it was dry June - August. My lawn also looked like garbage - I'm a bad gardener.
thanks for the suggestions. I ended up getting a second whisky barrel instead of the horse trough - figured the roots might tangle with two plants in the same container. When I pulled my hops up they didn't seem root bound, so I'm pretty sure my problem was watering/ fertalizing. the planters live in a spot in the lawn which is south facing, and gets pretty much all day direct sunlight. Last year they were going gangbusters during the spring, then petered out in the summer. I always forget to water, though - you figure living in Seattle you'd get enough rain, but it was dry June - August. My lawn also looked like garbage - I'm a bad gardener.
FuzzeWuzze
I Love DIY
Just buy one of these
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004INGS8S/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
And a short bit of drip hose from your hardware store and call it good, even the most incompetent person can keep up with watering
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+1 on FuzzeWuzzee's suggestion--those are the exact watering timers I use. The Orbit ones have given me no problems over several years of use. They even make a model with two ports you can program separately and a lever where you can bypass to still use the hose. They are awesome if you have a hose bib nearby. Hand watering takes up a tremendous amount of time and commitment, especially if you live in an are that gets no rain...
Alaskan_Brewer
New Member
no good... my hose is hooked up to one of these: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000071NUS/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
I really appreciate the idea, but in addition to an aspiring brewer and gardener, I am also a foot soldier in the land war with the raccoons. I'll figure it out. I think I'm better at gardening than I am at getting rid of vermin.
I really appreciate the idea, but in addition to an aspiring brewer and gardener, I am also a foot soldier in the land war with the raccoons. I'll figure it out. I think I'm better at gardening than I am at getting rid of vermin.
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FuzzeWuzze
I Love DIY
Why not both? You can get a Y splitter at Home depot for a dollar or two. Just turn the water on and when your racoon deterrent kicks in it can do its thing but the Orbit controller can still turn on the drip hose when it needs.
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aaronthechamp
New Member
I planted Chinook and Saaz crowns in planters for the first time this year. I believe they are 18'' planters, which are smaller than recommend but haven't had a problem thus far.
While the chinook is still growing as a good hop plant should, the saaz actually bloomed quite early and I have quite a number of ripe hop cones right now. I've picked much of the papery onces and dried them out but I don't think the lupulin production on them has been very good. They don't smell like the whole cone saaz I can get at my local homebrew store, and mostly just give off a tea-like aroma. Anyone have any experience with this? Is this due to the early harvest of them? Or could it be due to my the size of the planters? I'm hoping that the chinooks work out a bit better, but want to know if there's more I can do.
You can see the development of my hops at the following:
www.caskalela.com/category/grow-hop/
(Also, this is my first post.)
While the chinook is still growing as a good hop plant should, the saaz actually bloomed quite early and I have quite a number of ripe hop cones right now. I've picked much of the papery onces and dried them out but I don't think the lupulin production on them has been very good. They don't smell like the whole cone saaz I can get at my local homebrew store, and mostly just give off a tea-like aroma. Anyone have any experience with this? Is this due to the early harvest of them? Or could it be due to my the size of the planters? I'm hoping that the chinooks work out a bit better, but want to know if there's more I can do.
You can see the development of my hops at the following:
www.caskalela.com/category/grow-hop/
(Also, this is my first post.)
Kuddos on the german salutationHas anybody tried growing hops in a planter? I am interested in starting some rhizomes this way, and maybe leaving them permanently in large pots. Is this futile?
I have approval from SWMBO to rip out the shrubs in front lawn and plant hops there.
PROST!
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