AHB Articles: Hops - How to Grow Them

[hoppy2B]

Hops are actually a difficult plant to grow in my opinion. B)

 

[Wolfy]

Hops are actually a difficult plant to grow in my opinion. B)

I visited and maintained my hops 3 times last year; at the start of spring to weed the garden beds, then to provide the strings for them to grow up and finally to harvest them.
The rest of the season they had no attention or maintenance at all, they may have done better with more care and attention but they did mostly all the work themselves ... much like weeds do.

 

[Bizier]

My only (pedantic) problem with it, is that it starts off stating in the Utter Basics - "hops are basically a weed"

This is actually a thin veil to mask your hated of me for moving state with your flasks right?

If I recall, the beginning of the article was designed to dissipate the apprehension that seemed to exist in all of the 'can I grow hops?' questions. The fact is that they are easy, and I wanted to state it definitively.

Now that I see that you are irked, you pedant, I will re-write history to say that it was designed to draw forth a useless discussion of Commodores, Falcons and literal definitions of the word weed and, more importantly, what it means in the context of our society. Having done that, it is a raving success.

I would say that there are many plants that could make seriously sub-standard weeds, a ghost orchid for instance. Hops, on the other hand, will spread and be difficult to remove if you wanted to get rid of them.

To further derail the thread, I liked the movie Adaptation.

 

[hoppy2B]

I visited and maintained my hops 3 times last year; at the start of spring to weed the garden beds, then to provide the strings for them to grow up and finally to harvest them.
The rest of the season they had no attention or maintenance at all, they may have done better with more care and attention but they did mostly all the work themselves ... much like weeds do.

Yeah I noticed your pics in the 2011 hops thread Wolfy. I assume they are being watered for you? If you are unable to have them liquid manured during the growing season at least dump a heap of manure around them. I think you could do a lot better than the yield you took in if that's what you're after. Manure might improve the quality of the product as well.
I put a lot of work into growing my hops last year in my first season. It takes a fair effort to erect a good trellis, and I spent a lot of time watering my hops. I've made bigger mounds around my hops to make it quicker and easier to water them this season.
If you compare growing a field of hops to growing a field of wheat you soon realize just how much effort it takes to grow hops.

 

[Malted]

Hops are actually a difficult plant to grow in my opinion. location

Corrected it for you.

 

[Yob]

interesting Article for Southeners.. Ive sent an email with the hope of getting out there to dig up some 100 year old hops

 

[SJW]

I have a Chinook and Cascade that I planted this season in very large pots. They have both shot and are growing very well. The reason I put them in pots was that we are only renting at the moment and we should be moving to our new house in about april next year. Perfect timing. Then I was going to plant them in the ground. But I am having second thoughts now. Are the roots really that invasive? I dont want to create a monster that I can never tame. As I am not growing hops to save money or for commercial reasons (just out of interest really) should I just leave them in the pots?
I suspect I could get flamed for this comment but instead of planting them in the ground in my yard would it be irisponsible of me to plant them in a public bush reserve acroos the road? Are these things native? I suspect not. Would they do damage if let go wild? are there any growing wild?

Steve

 

[Wolfy]

Yeah I noticed your pics in the 2011 hops thread Wolfy. I assume they are being watered for you? If you are unable to have them liquid manured during the growing season at least dump a heap of manure around them.

They got no care other than what I gave them.
Giving them a dose of manure would be a good idea, but it would mean more work and introduce more weeds into the garden bed, maybe I'll do it after they go dormant next year.
But they still produced more hops than I'm likely to use in a year, so that's good enough for me.

I suspect I could get flamed for this comment but instead of planting them in the ground in my yard would it be irisponsible of me to plant them in a public bush reserve acroos the road? Are these things native? I suspect not. Would they do damage if let go wild? are there any growing wild?

They're not native, and they need stuff to grow up and lots of sunlight to do well.
In a bush reserve they'd only be able to grow up trees and then not have many nutrients or sunlight and likely not do as well as they could.

Yes there are 'wild' hops growing in Australia.
Edit, see Yob's link above for info about what I said below, I didn't read the link until after I had posted it.
Prickly Moses (in Otway) make a special batch of beer with wild hops, I have a plant that was re-grown from some 'wild' hops down that way too.
Likely the hops were introduced when the area was a hop-growing district (some 100 years ago) but there are still plants growing there and there are some photos (on these forums I think) somewhere that shows hops growing in a fern-river-gully in a native-forest area, climbing up trees etc.

 

[Muscovy_333]

I have built large timber planter boxes lined with thick plastic at the base. My intention is to kerb them from sending runners everywhere.
I have removed mine from the ground at this point in time as my first year hops went nuts and threw runners everywhere. It's not a real problem, but I am on a quarter acre block with 8 varieties on the go so want to keep a handle on them. Easy to move if i need to.

Dont plant them in a nature reserve. Apart from the obvious lack of control you may end up poisoning someones pooch.

 

[SJW]

Dont plant them in a nature reserve. Apart from the obvious lack of control you may end up poisoning someones pooch.

Good point, I would not do that anyway. On the topic of dogs...when we move we plan on getting a German Shepherd pup. So does anyone else have dogs and hops growing in the same yard?

 

[tricache]

Article printed!!! Great one!

 

[hoppy2B]

interesting Article for Southeners.. Ive sent an email with the hope of getting out there to dig up some 100 year old hops

Yeah read that a while ago Yob. The subject of the Ottaway wild hops came up on a thread about 'Pride of Kent' hops, which someone was trying to locate rhizomes of.
Going on Prickly Moses Brewery's pics, the main hop growing wild appears to be Fuggle with a lesser amount of Golding. I was also interested in heading out there to try and see if I could find a wild Golding that had mutated, or different variety of Golding, which maybe had more of a closed cone structure than the one I am growing, as well as a lighter coloured bine.
Would be interested in knowing which wild hop Wolfy has growing and if he'd be willing to part with a bit of zome.

 

[Malted]

So does anyone else have dogs and hops growing in the same yard?

Over the years we have planted a few dogs in our yards but the dammed things never grow. Maybe we buried them too deep but I suspect when they die you have to move on and buy a new one. I must admit we never tried planting a dogwood tree though.

 

[hoppy2B]

Corrected it for you.

Actually you made it incorrect.

 

[Yob]

your'e missing the point...

:icon_offtopic: how the hell do you add people to an 'ignore' list

 

[hoppy2B]

What's the point? A person only has to make a comment for nob head to be an expert on everything and put them down. <_<

 

[Yob]

Heavy ****** sigh.

will spell it out for you numpty..

These hops have been unattended for a hundred ****** years and continue to grow.

Cant be that hard can it? Thats the point.

 

[hoppy2B]

Heavy ****** sigh.

will spell it out for you numpty..

These hops have been unattended for a hundred ****** years and continue to grow.

Cant be that hard can it? Thats the point.

The point I don't get is why you think you have reason to make derogatory comment. I have in no way invalidated that point if that is the point you wish to get across. I too am interested in having a look at them.
I was merely pointing out that they are very much a Fuggle type. Fuggle will grow in shady conditions, so its these that survive and continue on. They may or may not have mutated.
As I pointed out I'm interested in Goldings.

 

[Batz]

I don't find hops hard to grow but I don't expect the yields that a tassie grower would get either. Bananas are easy for me to grow and I get heaps of fruit, and I would not expect a tassie grower to do so well.
As it has been said before it's all about location, but hell don't let that stop you having a go.

My little tip,
I make up a chook poo liquid fertilizer and feed them a couple of times a week. This in my opinion makes all the difference, we use this on all our veggie gardens it wonderful stuff.

batz

 

[Wolfy]

Good point, I would not do that anyway. On the topic of dogs...when we move we plan on getting a German Shepherd pup. So does anyone else have dogs and hops growing in the same yard?

I have about 30x hop plants growing at my sister's place, she has 2 black labs - not an issue (other than the dogs sometimes like to dig-up the mulch, but then so do the chickens).