Hop planting tomorrow!

[Steve Hinton]

Very excited to be planting some hop rhizomes tomorrow. I have three healthy Green Bullet rhizomes I was given by a local old timer. Not exactly my first choice in variety but hey, I'll take it! Should be fun adding another dimension to home brewing...growing the ingredients! Photo attached of the rhizomes and a 500ml Epic PA (which I've got a clone in the fermenter ) for scale.

Any tips to planting hops welcome!

[Kevin Sharp]

I found this useful - http://www.crannogales.com/HopsManual.pdf

A few points that come to mind are ...

* They want to grow up - 6 metres or more if they can.

* You want to stop the rhizomes growing sideways or they'll take over. Some people suggest planting in pots but I think that leads to weak plants that are liable to shrivel in the sun and wind. I prefer to prune them with a spade.

* Don't expect a harvest in the first year.

* A structure to support them has to be quite strong. Plants can easily weigh 30kg a piece (in the second year).

There are a few pics showing my last year's harvest and how heavy plants can get here -

https://plus.google.com/photos/106692550784209390798/albums/5996073...

[Steve Hinton]

Wow that is an impressive haul! What variety do you grow?

Well I got my rhizomes in the ground today with plenty of homemade compost. I have a decent stand of bamboo on our property with some pretty tall specimens so I cut a few down with the intention of building a climbing frame around 5 metres high but ran out of puff. I think I have a little bit of time up my sleeve to get it done ;-)

Are there many brewers on this forum who grow hops?

[Scott H]

I've just planted my first rhizomes too. Managed to get a nelly and a cade. The nelly was out of the ground after 5 days.

[Kevin Sharp]

They're mostly Smoothcone with one Danscade which hasn't cropped yet.

Bamboo sounds ideal. If you just have a few plants a teepee type structure should be OK.

There are quite a few hop growers on the forum. If you search older posts you'll find some of the names involved.

[Scott H]

Will they do any good growing along a fence?

[Kevin Sharp]

They will grow, but they prefer to be trained vertically rather than horizontally. One thing I learned from last year is that you shouldn't let them grow too bushy. If you do some cones will ripen long before others, and some cones won't get enough light to ripen at all. The flavour from my harvest last year was a little musty whereas the previous year when the cones had more light the flavour was great.

[Hayden Baxter]

I planted a cascade? rhizome last year in a pot first and left it for a few weeks or more before planting it. I just put a bag of potting mix in the ground with some fertiliser and planted it. They grow really fast. I watered it every day and I ended up getting quite a few cones when it came to harvest time. I didn't weigh them but it was covered with cones.

I let them grow up the fence before forcing them to go horizontal along some twine. I have a pic here but the bines had grown more before harvest time

[Taubin]

This may not be the correct place to ask this, and if it's not please forgive me. Is there anywhere to get rhiomes in and around Auckland? My wife has shown interest in growing them and asked me last night.