Archive for hop bines
2011 September 6th Hops Update
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Cascade Hop Cones
September 2011 hops update – approximately 2 weeks before harvest. The hop cones are getting big and plentiful. They are still wet and cool feeling when they are squeezed and do not compress much when squeezed – in other words they are still wet and not ready to harvest.
Hops should be fairly dried out on the bine before harvest. When they are dry (relatively speaking – they still require additional drying once harvested), you should be able to almost squeeze them flat without much resistance. They should feel “papery” and light and spring back to the size they were before you squeezed them.
This has been a weird growing season in the Minneapolis, Mn area where I am located. A cold, wet spring and hot, humid and wet summer. By the looks of the hop bines and cones compared to last year’s pictures, it will be a comparable hop cone harvest. Probably light on the Magnum hops due to the boron deficiency experienced earlier in the year (see previous posts).
Magnum Hop Cones
Nugget Hop Cones
3rd Year Hops Mid-August Update
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Recovered Magnum
3rd year hops mid-August update. This has been a challenging year for growing hops here in Minnesota (and probably most places). It started out with a cold spring, followed by a hot and humid summer and my brush with a boron deficiency.
As you can see, the Magnum hops shown to the left have recovered nicely. While the hop bines were stunted at 10 feet, some laterals decided to climb 4 feet higher. If you haven’t seen how bad off the Magnum hops were, go back a few posts or just click here –> Hops Boron Deficiency. They were just about dead. I am damn lucky I was able to revive them with a boron solution (after I finally determined thats what the problem was).
The Cascade and Magnum have a few small hop cones and are loaded with hop burrs. Same as the last 2 years, the Nugget are about 2 weeks behind the other 2 with burrs just starting. Unfortunately, it is hard to get a decent detailed picture posted without slowing down my blog. I will make it a point to get some close ups closer to harvest (and look into a beefier hosting solution – what do you expect for $8 a month – I host many other sites too).
No problems with deer. Rabbits munched a couple of hop sprouts when they were just starting out, but I had dozens of sprouts per plant so not an issue. I noticed quite a few Japanese beetles this year in my tomato garden. I have not seen any on my hops. Something has muched on some of the leaves but I haven’t seen who the culprit is yet. I am not worried as 90% of the leaves are untouched. I have learned to share a little in my organic gardening ways.
I tried something new and trained 5 or 6 bines per rope (I usually do 3 hop bines per rope). We will see what kind of harvest I get this year. Too many variables to really compare harvest amounts. Being third year hops, they should be near peak output. 3rd year hops, weather, deficiency issue, 5 -6 bines per rope – it will be hard to compare to last year’s harvest. We’ll see what happens.
With all the rain (above average) and humidity, I am surprised powdery
Nugget Magnum Cascade
mildew hasn’t hit. I see it or a similar disease on the leaves of my Lilac bushes, affecting my cucumbers and tomatoes. I have slime mold oozing from the ground around my tomatoes. I guess I have been lucky as far as my hops go. Let’s hope I don’t have any more challenges with the hops between now and harvest time.
I hope you all are having a good hop year. I would like to hear from you how things are going with your hops. Any “challenges” or “opportunities” to deal with this year? Any tips or tricks that would help this audience out? Make a comment – link is right below the post title “3rd Year Hops Mid-August” (don’t use the “Contact Us” form as only I see those).
Nugget Hops Harvest 2010
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Nugget Hop Bines
Nugget hops harvest – September 18th I harvested the Nugget hops. Two Weeks after the Cascade, Magnum and Fuggle hops. Same as last year – 2 weeks after my other hops were ready and harvested. I had three bines on this one rope and harvested exactly one kilo or 2.2 pounds of wet hops. They are really not that wet as they have dried somewhat on the bines.
Last years Nugget hop cone harvest was 1.3 pounds – 70% more than last years first year hop harvest.
Nugget Hop Harvest
Generally hops dry out to end up at 20 to 25% of the wet hop weight. If that holds true for this batch, I will end up with .44 to .55 pounds of dry hops. Splitting the difference, I will end up with about 8 ounces of dry Nugget hops.
These are currently drying in my living room under the ceiling fan. The temperature and humidity is down this year. Last year they dried while we still had the air conditioning running. This September here in Minnesota is below average (have not even hit 80 degrees this month – must be global warming).
Nugget Hop Cones Drying
That’s it for the 2010 hop season. I may update some posts or come up with some new ideas for the hop garden I may run past y’all (for my southern friends). 2010 was a great year for hops – for me and my Minnesota friends anyway. I look forward to your comments and ideas. I hope you all had a great hop harvest yourselves. If you are not growing beer hops, you should be – it’s easy and they are fun to watch grow. Prepare your soil now for next year – go back quite a few posts and I explain how I prepared the soil. My southern hemisphere friends, you must be coming up on your spring – best of luck to you.
Cheers!
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Hop Burrs Hop Cones
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Hop Burrs Hop Cones
August 1st hops update. The Cascade hops are mostly hop cones with a lesser amount of hop burrs. The Magnum are smaller cones and more hop burrs than the Cascade right now. Hop harvest will be in about a month I think.
Last year the Cascade and Magnum hops were ready to harvest at the same time. At this point, the Magnum are trailing the Cascade. I would rather harvest them separately anyway – it’s a lot of work.
The Nugget hops are barely hop burrs at this point. They trailed the other hops by 2 weeks last year so no surprise there. I am anxious to see how much more my hop harvest will be this year. I am hoping for double last year’s.
Pictured below is my 1st year container Fuggle hops and my second year hops. Left to right they are Fuggle, Nugget, Magnum and Cascade. Maybe one more update before harvest if I have time. So far, so good!
Fuggle Bines
Hop Burrs Hop Cones
Hop Bines Top Out
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Hop Bines Top Out
May 29th the Magnum hops reached the top of their rope (15 feet tall). The cascade and Nugget hop bines reached the top of their ropes May 21st (13 feet tall). I predicted by June 1st this would happen and apparently nailed that guess.
This is the second year for these hops. The first year is fun to watch how fast the hop bines grow, but that’s nothing compared to the second year. The first year a lot of the hop plants energy goes into establishing the root stock also known as the crown. By the second year, the crown is established and the sprouts come up earlier than if you planted hop rhizomes.
My hop sprouts survived a few frosts where tomatoes would have surely died. Hops are hardy once established. I lost a Mt. Hood hop plant I had planted in a container this spring. We had some 50 mph winds and it snapped them right off – the rhizome apparently couldn’t handle it – no more hop shoots / sprouts replaced them. They probably would have survived if I had them trained on a rope. They were about a foot long and I had not yet decided where to trellis them.
