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.
2 comments:
I was thinking about planting some in the back yard this year, But I forgot to order them online. But I still may try to do it if they are still available. Home grown hops would be awesome!
sweet!
If you want I can pick you up some at Kirk's and bring them with me to Omaha. I'm guessing he still has plenty and I'm all about giving him as much business as I can.
As you decide where to plant the hops - make sure riley can't get to it as hops are toxic to dogs. I don't know if dogs are necessarialy attracted to them, but if they grab a fallen cone to play with - then you could have trouble.
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