My Hops Got Crook...

[deebee]

I have been reading with dismay everyone's stories about how wonderful their hops are looking. You bastards. I planted mine in well-rotted compost, fed them with blood and bone, potash and weekly doses of seaweed concentrate and they just looked like crap, all tiny and withered with crunchy brown leaves and hardly growing at all.

So I cut the bastards off just below the ground. I wasn't sure why but it made me feel a lot better.

The VERY NEXT DAY I saw a new shoot. A couple of days later, another!

Now those two babies are looking extremely fine, dark green and healthy and have grown as much in a week as the other shoots did in a couple of months.

I hope no-one else had the same troubles as me, but if you did, just cut the buggers off. You won't kill the rhizome underground and you might just get a better deal.

 

[jayse]

iam the same as you deebee.
i think my prob was not watering enough for the first couple months.
Now with watering everyday the new shoots are much healtier.
like yours my older ones got so far and stopped and the leaves turned brown.
iam spewing i don't expect any cones now next year but iam sure if i watered correctly from the start i would have been fine.
anyway like you i was a little upset to read some other people were taking over the back yard and mine look like they are ready to roll over and die.
But like you i have sourced the problem now. it my be too late for this season though. i don't really know.

 

[deebee]

I reckon we'll get a small harvest. Photos I have seen of a loaded hops vine have way too many hops for my use - particularly as unknown alpha levels will probably see me using them for flavour and aroma only.

So I reckon a totally piss-poor harvest would be about an ounce or two of hops. That's enough for a brew or two. Good enough for this year.

 

[Goat]

Lucky bastard Deebee - do you have any photos of yours?

Number 1 trod on mine when it was about 2 inches out of the ground a few months back and it hasn't come back.... So I'll have to wait for next years batch now....

 

[deebee]

You never know, goat. You might get another shoot. Just keep watering etc.

 

[jayse]

yeap at least a few cones and i'll be happy.
but they may well not even go into the flowering stage if were real unlucky.

 

[THE DRUNK ARAB]

If I don't get any cones ofF of mine this season then I will have some of my own cones! :lol:

TDA

 

[GSRman]

Mine went sort of crusty when they were just over a foot long.... i was waiting until they were 18" before training them up... but they stopped there... so i trained one of them up anyway and its now going great guns