hops - week 18

the experiment continues:

Cascade - planted in outdoor container 12 April 2009 -> 15'+
notes: 1st Harvest was done right after taking these pictures. Above is the south facing side of the bine, below is north facing.

I decided to harvest only the hops that showed a little brown. Still have about this many left on the bine. They definitely had that papery feel. Also there was a fair amount of lupulin (yellow grains) on the inside base of the leaves, which gives it that hoppy smell. These are aparently indicators that they were ready to be picked. Stuck these in the food dehydrator at 100F.

Nugget - planted in indoor container 13 April 2009 -> 30'+
notes: Produced tons of large hops (1.25" long, 1" diameter).

hops - week 15

the experiment continues:
Mt. Hood (left) - planted in ground May 2008 -> ~14'
Cascade (right) - planted in outdoor container 12 April 2009 -> 15'+
notes: The Mt. Hood plant is dying off - no hops expected from the this one. The Cascade plant appears to have more or less stopped growing and is now just producing hops. Lots and lots of glorious hops. See pics below.

dying Mt. Hood plant

newer cascade hops

cascade hop closeup

Nugget - planted in indoor container 13 April 2009 -> 30'+

notes: Growth is maybe starting to slow.
Tons of hop burrs have shown up on newest laterals.

nugget hop laterals and burrs

i have hops

the cascade hops are coming in strong.

hops - week 14

the experiment continues:

Mt. Hood (left) - planted in ground May 2008 -> ~14'
Cascade (right) - planted in outdoor container 12 April 2009 -> 15'+
notes: The Mt. Hood plant is still developing sideshoots, but overall growth is still very slow and no hop burrs have shown up yet.
The Cascade plant is still growing laterals.
Tons of hop burrs (spikey balls) have shown up all over the plant. About a dozen of these have started to turn into the hop cones. See pics below.

cascade - hop burrs

cascade - hop cones

Nugget - planted in indoor container 13 April 2009 -> 25'+
notes: Still growing strong - focused on laterals.

Some hop burrs have shown up, but are not doing much yet.

hops - week 11

after a 3 week hiatus caused by a busy work schedule, a vacation and a little bit of laziness - the experiment continues:


Mt. Hood - planted in ground May 2008
3 main bines / 13' in length
notes: growth has started to pick up again
laterals have filled in areas where the virus thinned out leaves
no cones spotted as of yet

Cascade - planted in outdoor container 12 April 2009

3+ bines / 13'+ in length

notes: vigorous growth

numerous laterals in lower half 3'-5' in length

small spikey balls appearing on laterals -I assume these are the hop cones

Nugget - planted in indoor container 13 April 2009

1 bine / 20'+ in length

notes: vigorous growth

numerous laterals on the first and third quarter of the bine

some spikey balls (hop cones?) are starting to appear on the upper laterals

hops - week 8

the experiment continues:
Mt. Hood - planted in ground May 2008
3 bines / 8.5' in length
notes: growth is really slow now

Cascade - planted in outdoor container 12 April 2009
3+ bines / 6' in length
notes: still growing well.
side shoots are getting to be 0.5'+ long

Nugget - planted in indoor container 13 April 2009
1 bine / 10' in length
notes: growing like crazy - estimated 3.5' in one week
about to touch the ceiling - need to figure out where to go from there

hops - week 7 continued....

Some additional notes and pictures from week 7:

The Mt.Hood hops have started to worry me. Given its strong start I had high hopes for this plant, but a ??virus?? has really started to slow it down. Basically a ~sixth of the leaves developed this patterned brown coloration, then started curling down and dying off. The virus seems to have slowed of late, with no new dead leaves. New growth continues at a slow rate, and no significant side branching has occured.

The Cascade hops started the slowest, but have really started taking off. While this one is getting some decent length, it's the amount of side growth that is really impressive (which is where I think the cones grow). This picture doesn't capture it well, but each of the 3 main bines have multiple shoots coming out the sides with almost fully developed leaves.

The Nugget hops have been kicking ass lately with noticible growth over the course of a day. The middle leaves are 4" to 6" across and we've started an office pool for the date when the plant will reach the ceiling. Several side shoots have shown up and just started developing leaves. It seemed odd that only 1 bine ever took off, but my guess is that early on it wasn't getting enough sunlight.

A cautionary picture from the nugget hops. The miracle grow potting soil I bought came complete with little flys. They generally stay close to the soil, but have replicated in the hundreds. The fly traps seem to be doing a good job, but there are still some buzzing around.

hops - week 7

the experiment continues:
Mt. Hood - planted in ground May 2008
3 bines / 6'-8' in length
notes: slowed down but still growing strong.

Cascade - planted in outdoor container 12 April 2009
3+ bines / 3' - 4' in length
notes: growing like crazy.
had to add second rope to trelis
all 3 plants just started getting buds for side shoots, however the cascade is already getting bushy

Nugget - planted in indoor container 13 April 2009

1 bine / 6.5' in length
notes: growing like crazy now that it gets more direct sunlight.

the average new leaf size has at least doubled.

hops - week 6

the experiment continues:
Nugget - planted in indoor container 13 April 2009
1 bines / 5' in length

Mt. Hood - planted in ground May 2008

3 bines / 5'-7' in length

notes: some sort of blight has hit this plant, and i've been forced to prune several leaves.

online research suggest a virus that may have come with the plant from the beginning. a virus won't kill the plant; however there is nothing that can be done to remedy the plant and it will have lower production.

Cascade - planted in outdoor container 12 April 2009
3 bines / 1' - 3' in length

hops - week 4

The experiment continues:


Mt. Hood - planted in ground May 2008
3 bines / 2'-4.5' in length
notes: trimmed the other damaged bine
leaves are starting to yellow towards the top - think it is time for some fertilizer

Cascade - planted in outdoor container 12 April 2009

5 bines / 0.5" - 1' in length

notes: taking off and growing fast

lots of leaves througout

Nugget - planted in indoor container 13 April 2009
1 bines / 2.7' in length
notes: lost the two little bines - just seemed to rot away at their top
main bine still going strong although it has definitely slowed
probably ready for some fertilizer here too

trellises

I built 2 trellises for my hops experiment this year.


The first trellis was fairly simple. It consists of a relatively heavy gage 13' long cable running from the hop's pot to the ceiling at my office. The heavier-than-needed cable was intended to give a nice rough surface for the plant to grab onto, while providing a cleaner look than say a jute rope. I sunk an eye-bolt into the pot for the base. I then popped out a tile from the drop-ceiling and hooked the cable to one of the metal channels. The cable was angled to be out of the way, but still get as much sun as possible from the windows.

The second trellis was a little more complex. It consists of 2 - 4"x4" posts (6' and 12' long), 2 - post spikes (24" and 30"), 2 - 24" long soil anchors, 5 - eye screws, 1 - turnbuckle, and some cabling and jute rope.


I went with the post spikes because 1) I figured they were less permanent than concrete and we're eventually going to be building a garage back there and 2) to give my posts a little extra length. I installed the two spikes such that the 6' post / 24" spike was at the surface, and the 12' post / 30" spike was buried and extra 1' for extra stability.

Placement of the posts and the anchors was pretty much based on how much space I had. I managed to get them all about 4' apart. I installed the five eye screws into the posts, 2 on either side of each post 6' from the ground, and 1 on the inside and top of the 12' post. I then ran the angled cable (guy wire) from the 6'-high-eyes to the anchors, getting them as tight as possible. Last I ran the cable connecting the two posts and used a turnbuckle to tighten them all up.

The final step was to run jute rope from stakes in the ground up to the 6' post. I plan to run another jute rope from the 6' post up to the 12'-high-eye with plenty of slack on the other side so that I can raise and lower the line.

So far so good. The system seems pretty stable. The 12' post has just a little bit of a wobble. I figure I might just bolt an extra support to the cinder block by my driveway. An other approach would be to add an extra guy wire and set them up in a triangle - but I'd rather not go this route for space reasons.