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| Hop Vine shows signs of growth, cones will soon appear! |
In February 2011 I started seeing ‘pre-order’ messages from hop rhizome retailers in homebrew supply magazines Northern Brewer and Midwest Supply. I was intrigued and put in an order for 4 varieties of Hops; Cascade, Willamette, Nugget & Golding . I didn’t do much research before I put in the order, and in hindsight, should have chosen more wisely. Here is a good source for Hops info. Turns out I ordered 1 variety of bittering Hops (Nugget) and 3 Aroma hop varieties (Cascade, Willamette & Golding). Oops. Should have done 2 and 2. See my earlier post for Rhizome info.
For planting and growing reference I bought and read Homegrown Hops: An Illustrated How to Do It Manual. The book is not very good, I have to admit I didn’t do any research for ‘good books on hop growing’, there might be better how-to books out there. If there are, please let me know.
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| Hope cones form in early August |
The Cascade vine is performing better than the rest. Why? I’m not sure. It is the vine that has had the most access to direct sunlight, so I don’t know if that’s why it is performing, or if the climate of Central/Southern MN has something to do with it. Regardless, I’m going to have a nice little crop of Cascade hops this year. The vine is currently 12 – 15 feet long, and has 50+ hop cones maturing. The Willamette vine never produced a shoot. The Nugget and Golding vines are up, and have climbed about 7 feet, but aren’t producing cones. The book said not to set big expectations from your first year. Apparently vines need a year to establish, and do much better in year two. If you want a quick tutorial on growing check out this link.
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| First year Cascade crop |
I attached my string to wire clothes hangers that I modified which has worked great! Two of the hop vines I grew along side my garage, and the other two vines I placed by our front porch. The garage height (soffit to ground) is about 7.5 feet. The height from porch ceiling to ground is about 10 feet.
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| Soon they shall be in beer |
7.5 feet is NOT long enough for a vine that is growing well. I had to extend the vine string horizontally along the garage soffit to give it room to grow. Keep this in mind when searching for your grow location. The garage set up seems to be working just fine, and honestly, when it comes time to harvest, It’ll be easy to access the cones. Just plan for your hop vine to reach a length of 15 feet when surveying potential locations.
Next will be ‘the harvest’. I’m excited to use homegrown hops in a fall batch!
