Is it ever too late to plant?

[Leviathan]

I'm about to foray into my first hops grow but I won't be able to plant my rhizomes until mid-May. I live in Massachusetts so by that time, the weather shall be fairly, consistently warm. Will I run into any trouble planting them by that time? Or should I just wait until next season? I'll probably give it a go regardless, but I figured i'd ask anyway.

They're Nugget and Cascade, by the way. Thanks all!

 

[david_42]

Go ahead and plant. A summer's growth for the root system is worth doing.

 

[bosox]

I live in Massachusetts too, and I'm going to be planting my hops tomorrow, but I've heard that mid may is about the latest you want to plant them. Although I've also heard that the first year is primarily for estableshing a root structure, and that you may only get 6 feet of growth at best for the first year, and any actual hop cones are a plus. So I would think that it wont hurt at all to plant them by then, but I wouldn't really expoect much out of them anyways for the first year.

 

[CrazyHorse]

There is such thing as too late to plant. But it's definitely not in mid-May. Putting your rhizomes in a healthy environment which provides full sunlight and water will definitely strengthen the plants and will ensure that you have a much better harvest in 2011 than if you were to wait until next year to plant. Go for it.

 

[Retrofit]

Agree with the above "Spring" and "Summer" are 'never to late to plant', though a yield may be low. "Fall" *may* be 'to late to plant' and "Winter" is 'to late to plant'. Like the others say, if your hops aren't growing up, the rhizome is growing 'out' and what you don't get this year you will next. Good luck, they are a fickle worrysome friend.

 

[uechikid]

I would go ahead and plant them. I didn't plant last year until the end of May and still got a few ounces of dry hops.

 

[cwilliams108]

I concur with the others I planted mine (Mt. Hood) around July 4th last year just to establish "some" root system. I got about 6 ft of growth in the short time they had to grow and feel like it gave them a good head start for this year. Now if mother nature would just cooperate and stop dropping the overnights to the mid 30's I think my little babies would be just fine. I have about 2 ft of growth on the "sort-of" second year and 3 of the 4 first year Sterling I put in the ground are up.

 

[david_42]

CW - you've got more growth than my 5th year plants. Had a frost a couple days ago.

 

[cwilliams108]

I feel your pain weather here in Indy has been odd this spring, we went from frigid to 80's to 34 for a low and 68 for a high, been all over the place. To make matters worse the only real place I could plant them was on the west side of the house with twine to the eaves 20' up and I've been worried about them getting enough sun since.

 

[Stratotankard]

Don't think of it as planting late for this year, rather as planting really early for next year.

I planted mine here in Arkansas in mid-May. My first year crop was rather meager, but they did suffer from a couple weeks of very hot, dry conditions while I was not home to water them. My second year produced a small bucket full. I have great hopes for this year.

Terje

 

[cwilliams108]

Grrrrrrrrr woke up this morning to a frosty white lawn I could almost hear my hops screaming. CURSE YOU MOTHER NATURE CURSE YOU!!!!! ok I'm all better now I'm sure they will be fine.

 

[ThreeDogsNE]

I planted some in the summer last year, and brought them in and kept them under grow lights through most of the winter. The ones I did not drown seem to be off to a decent start this Spring. The ones I did drown taught me a lesson about overwatering in gardening. Oh, well...