hops - week 2

The experiment continues:

Mt. Hood - planted in ground May 2008
5 bines / 1'-2' in length
note: need to start training 3 of them

Cascade - planted in outdoor container 12 April 2009
1 bine / 1" in length
note: squirrels dug around bine early on (see chicken wire)
slow growth attributed to cool nights

Nugget - planted in indoor container 13 April 2009
2 bines / 2.5" and 14" in length
notes: observed incremental growth over the course of the week
day - growth (length)
7 - sprouted (0")
8 - 1" (1")
9 - 1.5" (2.5")
10 - 2.5" (5")
11 - 3" (8")
13 - 6" (14")

happy earth day

In honor of today being earth day I decided to proceed with phase 2 of one twentieth of my commute. Finished product to be debuted this fall.

So far this year my biking efforts have been hit or miss. I've been averaging just over 1.9 commutes by bicycle per week for a total of ~350miles this year. I am trying to bike every day this week. So far so good - although monday with 30-40mph winds in my face the whole ride home kinda sucked.

hops - week1

I wasn't expecting to post a progress report for this week, however my hops have sprouted:

Mt. Hood - planted in ground May 2008
5 bines / 4"-7" in length

Cascade - planted in outdoor container 12 April 2009
1 bine / sprouted through 2.5" soil and 1" compost after 9 days

Nugget - planted in indoor container 13 April 2009
1 bine / sprouted through ~2.5" soil after 7 days
day 8 photo below - 1" in length

last year's hops

So I made a somewhat exciting discovery late last week. As I was potting my hops for this years crop, I noticed that the hops I planted last year were coming up. They weren't just coming up though - they were coming up strong!


I decided to pull back the wood mulch and compost around them. Put in a little brick border to help remind me not to step on them.

I am starting to rethink my container experiment for this year. If you look at the photo below, there is still a remnant twig that I need to prune from last year's bine. This year's bines are ~twice the diameter by comparison. I knew that they liked it outside and in the ground, however given Nebraska's non-ideal hop climate - I wasn't expecting them to come up so well this year. Don't get me wrong, I am not going to give up on the container experiment - rather I'm going to start comparing all three settings. I'm going to call this week - week 2.

office hops

So I decided to try out yet another experiment in gardening. Hopefully this one turns out better than last years'.

The experiment: grow some hops at my office.

I've actually been thinking about this ever since I moved into my current office space last June, which has 10'+ high windows. The one thing holding me back until now was obtaining the hop rhizome, which are only for sale in the springtime. April 4th I stopped by Kirk's Brew and he had just gotten some in. Some articles in the latest online issue of BYO gave me the information and motivation to pursue the project. Stopped by Westlake where I bought a pot and some soil and finally got around to planting it today.

Last year I bought a mt. hood rhizome in May and planted it in the backyard. It did ok, but the combination of the late start and not properly pruning the bines caused it to fizzle out by mid summer after growing just a couple of feet. I purchased two different rhizomes this year. Kirk recommended cascade and nugget hops as varieties that do well in Nebraska (last year I didn't have a choice).


I decided to put them both in containers. Lack of space and the potential for a little more control sold me on the idea. BYO recommends a 20" diameter pot, which is frickin huge yet apparently necessary as they have large root systems. I filled up the pot with 2 cu-ft of soil -> shook it to settle it down making sure not to compact the soil -> dug a ~2.5" deep trench -> dropped in the rhizome -> covered and added about 3 gallons of water. And so the experiment begins.

night brew

Made some dunkelweizen last night or at least that is what the box said. I did make some additions to the recipe -> 0.5lb crushed wheat grain for the partial mash and some spices (corriander and orange peel). I'm going for a dark wit-beer, which really makes no sense, but I figured why not. The big burner on my stove is still on the fritz so I opted to do a night brew. It was fun.... cold, but fun. This batch is intended for the Belgian American Society's Heritage Night in 2 weeks, which means I am going to have to keg it for sure. Fortunately it was bubbling like a champ this morning, so I have high hopes that it will finish on time.

This batch does come with a note of disappointment. I've been working on a mash-tun, which I had hoped to inagurate with this batches' partial mash. Sadly the false bottom I had hand crafted was destroyed. Lets just say poor judgement and dishwashers was involved. Next time...

so uhhhh.... we're moving

So I have big news. We're moving. I applied for a new job in Colorado Springs last month and found out monday that I got it. The job is with a corporation called URS. The work is similar to what I have been doing, although I'll be doing a lot more travel. Noel and I were casually watching the housing market up there (just in case) and had actually found a house we absolutly loved. After I found out I got the job, we called about the house. Apparently someone else had just made and offer, so long story short - we bought it.



It's been a busy couple of days... I'll post more details soon.

BREAKING NEWS - this was my lame ass attempt at an april fools joke. according to latest polls - 33.3% of people were fooled.