Monday, May 26, 2008

My First Year Hop Garden

With all this talk of hops shortages and hop crisis, I decided to try to grow some of my own hops. I’m not alone. There seems to be thousands of home brewers, in the same boat as me, growing their own hops. I ordered my 4 hop rhizomes from the Thyme Garden. They were Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, and Nugget. They were all planted in early/mid April and I have had various results. I am sure everyone has different results and it comes down to each individual rhizome. Here’s what I got now.

Centennial Hops
The Centennial hops are by far my best growing hops. They are about 4 foot high and I have 3 bines climbing up the twine right now with one more about to grow.

My Hops - Centennial

My Hops - Centennial

Nugget Hops
The Nugget hops are growing pretty nicely. They are about 8-10 inches high and I have 2 bines that are starting to look for the twine to climb. They should be climbing by next weekend or so.

My Hops - Nugget

Cascade Hops
My cascade hops are growing, but I had a slight issue with them. I used Bone Meal as a fertilizer and my dog thought it was a delicious treat. So he decided to lick at the Bone Meal and accidently stepped on one of my 2 bines that were growing. They were both small, but it seems to have stunted the other one. So it is only about an inch or two high and hasn’t gotten any bigger in 3 weeks. I am hoping once the shock settles, these will start growing again.

My Hops - Cascade

Chinook Hops
These are a no show. From what I understand, the Thyme Garden ran out of Chinook, so they had to fill their orders from another company. The Chinook rhizome seemed to be the smallest, so maybe I am just being impatient. I will let it be. There’s not much I can do now.

My Hops - Chinook

3 comments:

Brian said...

I've actually got the exact opposite scenario playing out with my cascade and centennial. Cascade it at around 6 foot now and my centennial is just now starting to come to life..maybe it has alot to do with my enviornment (Chicago)...

Anyhow, enjoyed the post-cheers!
Brian

Jason said...

How are the hops doing now? I also started a garden this year, and the Centennial vines are close to 5 ft already. Cascade was much slower but it's creaping towards 2 feet.

Cheers,
Jason

Jeff Louella said...

As of today, The Centennial are pushing 12 feet, Nugget is like 4 feet and cascade is only 6 inches. The cascade was stuck at an inch for a while, but has recently started again.