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WayneCP86

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19/12/15
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Location
Ipswich
G'day all.

After some help with my attempt at growing hops. Firstly some details, Ive built a hops garden out of my old tomato garden, Im sure it will work where it is and how its set up. Its a bed of fresh compost, garden mix, chook manure and sugarcane mulch. I use a drip system and diy heavy sprayer. Heres a look at it...


Ignore the green hose, it was temporary.


My questions are:
Is there any guides or suggestions to growing hops up here in SEQ?
Ill be after 2-3 rhizomes, looking at fuggles, goldings, cascade and saaz types, are there any of these types that are definitely no for growing here?
And I know its out of season but are there anyone with rhizomes about still? ;p

Cheers
Wayne
 
I don't have anything to say about growing hops where you are, but if you put multiple types of hop rhizomes together in that tub you won't be able to tell which is which within a year. They spread. Majorly.

Soil mix sounds good.

There are definitely some QLD hop growers on here. Maybe check the 2016 Hop Plantations thread for some QLD growers and PM them. If you get a bit more specific in your thread title you're likely to get more bites.
 
Cheers,

I have the rhizomes and "trellises" seperated by around a meter, I read online that would be suitable?

I did post up the title as "Hops help for SEQ" but I think my phone cut it short when I sent it through.... oh well.

Thanks
 
Yob said:
1 meter might be ok for the first year... after that your fucked... 3 meters is better
The swear jar is filling up tonight. Are you saving up for something?
 
WayneCP86 said:
G'day all.

After some help with my attempt at growing hops. Firstly some details, Ive built a hops garden out of my old tomato garden, Im sure it will work where it is and how its set up. Its a bed of fresh compost, garden mix, chook manure and sugarcane mulch. I use a drip system and diy heavy sprayer. Heres a look at it...


Ignore the green hose, it was temporary.


My questions are:
Is there any guides or suggestions to growing hops up here in SEQ?
Ill be after 2-3 rhizomes, looking at fuggles, goldings, cascade and saaz types, are there any of these types that are definitely no for growing here?
And I know its out of season but are there anyone with rhizomes about still? ;p

Cheers
Wayne
I gotta say, I do love this bathtub approach, I do hope there are very big holes in it for drainage though, hops like to be well drained
 
Yeah its very well drained, large holes that can be blocked up if need be. Its been used to grow tomatoes to chillies, they have been downgraded though for this new venture!

It dries out fully after 1 and half days of 30 degree heat and nothing growing in it.
 
If you do find some one with rhizomes you will be better off organising a swap of cones and grow just one type from the tub, as Mardoo pointed out the rhizomes would intermingle and there would be no knowing what is coming up where.
 
Ok, Ill keep it this set up as is for now but just one type will go in it. I can do a second type on the other side of the shade house. Will 1 rhizome be enough in that tub or would 2 of the same type be needed? Im now assuming one will cover that set up pretty well after the first season or so...
 
Actually ignore that last one... I re read thr growing hops article and saw my miss read, the root system itself can grow to that size. So ill leave one in there, Ill go to bunnings and set up another in a large pot on the other side, or wait til master puts up mega sales!

Cheers everyone
 
I live near Boonah (so not too far from you) and a few of my mates in the area have had varying degrees of success growing hops.
My experiences: we grew goldings (though I'd be surprised if that was the actual variety), cascade, chinook. The most successful plants grew upward of 5 metres tall (we put a nail in the apex of the roof of a two storey house and string to the ground and the hops grew to the top and wanted to go higher). The roots spread very far and so garden beds in the ground were better. Lots of chook poo in loose, fluffy, well drained soil helps.
The major killers l found were weather conditions: wind, dry weather and extreme heat. I live on a hill and my hops would get blown apart from wind all the time. We will also get those ex-cyclones or summer tropical low pressure systems with gale force winds that blow rooves off houses or supercell storms in this part of the world. Hops just don't like strong wind and will let you know. The heat in Ippy gets pretty bad too. Weeks of 37 degree days don't help. Plus we don't get the long daylight hours of our southern friends in places like Melbourne or Tassie.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mrdAMO7bABs

Check out the video I made a few years ago (or just search "growing hops in seq" on YouTube). We were able to harvest about 200g of goldings, 150g of cascade and about 75 g of chinook. The cascade was lovely and the chinook was a late bloomer.
My opinion is you are planting a bit late but you could still grow them. As yob said earlier, you will need more height. But, have a go.
 
Cheers, Ive scene your video before. Im pretty covered from the wind here, live in a gully along that stretches along a creek off the 2 rivers. Heat is my only concern, but 37 degrees as the weather man says is measured at Amberley, here we have a weather station as well and it generally sits 2 degrees lower then stated. Normal summer days are 32-34, very hot ones are 34-36, we have had 40 here though during heat waves, thats a killer and something ill have to watch.

My family use to a few properties out at boonah and aratula, I found the heat there was very direct compaired to here, but the further you head to the center of ipswich then west of it the more brutal it becomes as well.

The set up I have gives me 8 meters of "height", i just need to train them to grow horizontally at around 4 meters.

Im not really after huge quantities, more of a lets give it a go, sounds like fun thing.
 
Hops don't mind heat, but hops don't like dry. I swear by soaker hoses, the black ones that weep. In hot periods I just leave them on very low 24/7. They have to have good drainage for this. They'll grow an easy 12cm on days between 35C and 40C. However, hot wind they don't like and kalbarluke is spot on about wind in general.

They're river bottom plants originally, so it sounds like they'll do just fine where you are Wayne. However, the length-of-day thing will likely be an issue. The difference in moving mine from a place where they got 6 hours of direct sun to a place with 10 hours of direct sun was noticeable in plant size, health and crop.
 
Cheers ok, yep mine should be fine then, i have a black weeper hose setup, its just covered by the mulch in the pic. I get sun there all day as it gets it from the east nor east in from before 5am until around 12 and then from it goes more west nor west until around 6.30ish. I think from here it will be more trial and error, to see what works best.

Thanks heaps everyone, will have to wait now until some rhizomes come up for sale!
 
I'm a bit further north and subject to fairly strong coastal winds where we are, so the bines cop a fair flogging from the wind, especially with the inevitable summer tropical lows.

I've tried Goldings, but a bunch of grubs ate them out after their first poor growth season. Same happened to a Hallertauer after 2 years of runted growth up to about 75cm max. zero flowers, Cascade does ok until either the grasshoppers, scrub turkeys or the army worm turn up in battalion strength. Chinook is almost (almost) unkillable and tends to thrive and give some good quantity of decent sized cones, though this year the grasshoppers demolished the growth tips when it got to about 3M high. Retribution came in the form of bhut chilli spray, which made me feel better, but alas the damage was done. I'm thinking of just farming grass hoppers next year :unsure:
 
Ouch, thats got to suck! My old man has a shed full of chemical warfare supplies and takes almost too much pleasure in using them. Never really have issues with bugs but if they do rock up, they dont last!
 
HBHB said:
I'm thinking of just farming grass hoppers next year :unsure:
Nah, they make the beer way too grassy…sorry. (Possums are my particular nightmare.)

Variety-wise I'd recommend Chinook, Victoria and Mt. Hood. They all grow well in Australia and produce lovely hops here. As HBHB says, they're tough buggers.
 
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