In cold climates it is important to overwinter hop plants / protect them from sub-zero temperatures. Hops do fairly well on their own but can be killed off if the ground is unprotected and hard freezes the ground. Snow will insulate the ground but occasionally the snow will be blown clear or animals may dig the snow away from the underground hop crowns (started as hop rhizomes).
Protect Cascade Hop Crowns
No sense taking any chances of losing your hop plants to the weather. All it takes is a layer of mulch – I used 6 inches of leaves and grass I bagged while mowing. This also helps in the Minnesota climate to keep the ground cold enough in the spring to prevent hop sprouts from sprouting too soon and then freeze. Generally they will send up new shoots if the first hop shoots freeze and die off but why waste the root stock energy.
When sub-freezing temperatures have past in the spring, You just clear the mulch and and the hop crown will send up shoots as the ground warms.
Unless you want the hops to spread in all directions, you will want to trim the hop rhizomes by digging down and cutting the lateral running rhizomes and pull them up. You can plant these in other areas if you wish or give or sell them to friends and fellow hop growers and homebrewers. I will be cutting the rhizomes about a one foot radius from the center of the crown (two foot diameter to contain the hop plants). They are self propagating and will travel in all directions from the crown.
One problem with not containing the spread of hops is they will soon mix with other nearby varieties and can be hard to distinguish variety and/or you will have 2 or more variety of hop bines growing together and makes harvesting and separating the different varieties of hop cones difficult if not impossible. My varieties are 5 to 6 feet apart so with a little effort, I can keep them separate. You need to know which hops are which for accurate beer and ale recipes. You especially do not want to mix bittering hops with aroma hops.
That’s it, just a layer of mulch – leaves, grass, hay, straw or compost to protect the hop crowns and the organic material will also leach into the ground as an organic fertilizer. Next years hop yield will be even better!
Hop plants have hit the top of the ropes again – 12 feet, bines are looped 6 feet around hose hangers (Cascades and Nugget hop plants total 18 feet tall with the loop – Magnum bines are a little over 10 feet tall). I went to drop the hop bines another 6 feet and loop them around the hose hangers I mounted last week – Murphy (Murpy’s law – anything that can go wrong, will) reared his ugly friggen head. Turns out when I looped the ropes/bines, the non-dominant bine (trailing the dominant bine by 6 feet) did not make the loop. This caused the shorter bine to rejoin the rope at the top of the hose rack, making it difficult to loop the ropes and bines without getting them tangled when the shorter bines rejoin the top rope during there climb.
Magnum Hop Plants
While the taller bine on each rope (I have 2 bines per rope) is topped out, the shorter bine on the rope will not be joined with the rope at the top of the hose rack. Something learned from this setup – issues with more than one bine per rope. Not a show stopper but an inconvenience trying to accommodate both bines on each rope. It will still function in that I will not need a ladder to lower the hop vines at harvest time.
The hops plants (at least the Cascade and Nugget hops) grew 5 feet in the last week. The Magnum hops are a little over 10 feet tall at this point – grew about a foot or two. The Magnum has more and denser vegetation than the other two. It appears to be a tie again between the Cascade hops plant and the Nugget hop plant at 18 feet in length.
While all three hop plants are sending out lateral shoots, the Cascade side shoots are much longer – 18 inches to 2 feet in length. Should start seeing hop cones soon. Hopefully the bines will fill out much more than they are now.
I may have to modify the hop trellis next year to accommodate 1 bine per rope (mount more ropes) or come up with some new ideas. Anyway I am happy with the first year hops growth. Hoping for a decent harvest despite this being the first year. Growing hops next year from established hop rhizomes / root stock should faster yet!
Lateral Hop Shoots
I finally stripped the bottom of the bines of leaves and side shoots (lateral shoots). I did not strip the hop bines the recommended 4 feet from the ground. I went around 2 feet (can’t tell me a damn thing – always been a bit of a rebel). You can see this on the bottom of the Magnum hop bine picture. The purpose of removing the lower foliage is to allow airflow to prevent mildew (especially powdery mildew) and possibly deter some pests that may come from the ground – we’ll see.
There’s this weeks status on the hops plants. I am also running out of rope, maybe 5 feet left to lower the bines for a total length of 23 feet – nothing to complain about though, proud of these hop plants!
Hop bines – Humulus Lupulus (not hop vines) are taking off now. Growing at a rate of 3 to 6 inches a day. 7 days ago the Nugget hops were 7 feet tall – the Magnum hops were 5 feet tall and the Cascade hops were 6 feet tall.
Cascade Hop Bines Gaining Ground
1 week later Nugget hop bines are just over 10 feet, Magnum hop bines are 7 feet tall and the Cascade hop bines are 9 foot 6 inches. In 7 days the Nugget hops grew 3 feet (5 inches a day), Magnum hops grew 2 feet (over 3 inches a day) and the Cascade hops grew 3 foot six inches (6 inches a day)! This is the fun part of growing hops!
The vertical growth should continue at this pace or better and the bines should soon fill in with side shoots and hop cones! The hop flowers or hop cones are the end product we are after. Watching the hops bines grow is the fun part. I have not had to lower the bines yet (soon) as they reach the top of the rope/pulley of the hop rigging. I still need to get some hose hangers or similar contraption to loop the bines on to allow more vertical space for the hop bines to grow.
Magnum Hops are Slower to Start
I mentioned on an ealier post that I spotted a posting on an interesting concept, a upward spiral. I don’t know if the bines would need to be constantly trained or if they would follow the spiral. I imagine there is a magic number of the angle of the rope where the bines would wrap around the rope without daily training. Too slow of a rise and the bine would attempt to grow straight up. I will experiment with this concept next year.
This years pulley rigged ropes with a slight angle is doing great. No sense in messing with perfection. The Nugget bines are within 2 feet of reaching the top so I better start shopping for
Grow Hop Plants from Hop Rhizomes or Garden Center Hop Plants
Grow hops from hop plants! I was shopping for some flowers for my mother (Mothers Day) and I stumbled across some Nugget hop plants (humulus lupulus) for sale! These were 2 to 3 feet tall and doing better than the ones I planted from rhizomes almost a month ago. This was in the parking lot of our local Cub Foods (Cub Foods parking lot greenhouse). I have never seen hop plants for sale before at a garden center.
Hop rhizomes are getting hard to come by these days (out of season) so there is still the possibility to get some hop plants in the ground this year. Nugget was the only variety this particular plant shop had available but it gives hope to finding other variety hop plants in the garden centers. I thought I would pass this on for folks who still want to grow hops this year.
Growing hops is possible in almost every one of the United States of America. Hops obviously exist in Europe, Asia and other locations but I will stick with what I am familiar with, the USA. To grow hops you generally must be between the 30th and 50th parallel (see diagram below). Some varieties of hops do better than others in the extremes of this range (some like it hot, some not). Currently, the northwest USA produces the largest crop of hops plants (Oregon, Washington Northern California…).
Hops (Humulus Lupulus) are a fast growing vine that requires large amounts of sunshine and nutrients from the soil to sustain their rapid growth. Hop vines can grow up to 40 ft in length. A perennial, which dies back every winter to the root stock also known as the crown. Hop plants can be grown from hop rhizomes (underground stems) or seed (but usually hops rhizomes – only want female hop rhizomes). Hop plantings are generally grown vertically but can be grown horizontally. Most Hops plants require a 4 month growing season.
Only the female hop plants flower (the flower is the hop). Males are used for pollination to seed the females but generally un-pollinated or seedless hops are preferred for brewing. Beer hops are used for brewing beers and ales to counteract the sweetness of the barley, to provide aroma and also works as a preservative. Hops have medicinal qualities and calming effects but that is out of scope for this blog.
Planting hops requires a nutrient dense, well drained soil with a PH between 5 and 8. Most hop growers go vertical with their plants so that must taken into consideration for planting. Since most people (at least in the cities) have a 1/4 acre or less, use a side of their house or garage or tall poles and twine or rope. Running twine from the ground to a roof line or overhang is very popular. A common configuration is twine from a ground anchor to an eyelet attached high on a pole, house, garage or other building and zigzagged up and down (using a latch hook on the high end for easy removal). If using a single pole, it would be a tee pee configuration. There are many ways to rig the vines but rope seems to work the best compared to trellises when it comes to harvest time.
Soil should be prepared at least a couple weeks before planting to allow the soil amendments to blend together. Soil should be dug down about a foot to ensure the root stock can grow unimpeded. The soil should be mixed with organic materials (I am an organic kind of guy). Decomposed manure, compost, leaves and/or grass clippings and wood ashes are all good soil amendments for hop gardens. Drainage is very important for hop plants so be aware of slopes and valleys in the ground. If planting against a house or garage without gutters (on the down slope side) beware the roof runoff. A raised mound and drainage paths help in these cases and is a good idea for all hop planting.
Most hops are propagated from rhizomes, so that is what I will cover (besides I have never started from seed). If you have a short growing season, you can start hop rhizomes indoors. Once the threat of frost has passed, it is time to plant. Plant 2 or 3 hop rhizomes in a grouping or mound, 1 to 4 inches below the soil’s surface. Plant buds up and groupings about 3 feet apart, more if the next grouping is a different variety of hops.
When the shoots break ground and are about 1 foot long, select 1 to 3 of the hardiest hop bines (similar but different from vines) and train them to climb the rope in the same direction – most advice clockwise (not sure why). Like everything, there are different ways to go about this, either 1 pole or rope per mound or 1 on each side of the mound (2 per mound if maintaining approximately 3 feet between) – prune all other bines to focus all the growing energy to the selected vines or bines. Difference between bines and vines: vines send out grasping shoots. Bines use stiff hairlike follicules and wrapping around things to support themselves.
Depending on when you started or when the existing crowns started vines, the hops should be ready for harvest around mid August to mid September. When mature, the hops will be squeezable rather than solid and have a paper like texture. When you determine it is harvesting time, bring down the ropes or poles and pluck the hops from the vines. The hops must be dryed, either in a dehydrator, an oven no more than 140 degrees(with the door open) or at room temp spread out on a single layer on a raised screen to allow airflow. Room temp drying is best for retaining flavor and aroma.
Once dryed, the hops should be vacuum sealed and frozen for best results or fresh hops may be used immediately (after drying the hops). If not vacuum sealed, at least remove as much air as you can from a sealable freezer bag and then freeze. Shield the hops from light as that will prolong freshness also.
This is a bit abreviated but gives you enough information to grow your own hops! Read some books on how to grow your own hops and/or do some more Internet research to gain additional tips, tricks, methods and theories to maximize your hop growing abilities. Just say no to hop drought and start growing hops.
