Hop Garden Update #1

I actually planted hop rhizomes last spring – watered them every day for about 3 weeks – then forgot mostly about them.  So, this might turn out to be a “what not to do” series. But that’s ok – either way we’ll learn something!

Fortunately, hops are pretty hearty so I didn’t manage to kill them off.  And from what I’ve read the first year is all about building up the root system anyway.

You can see the little dark hills where they’re planted – behind the overgrown brush.

Of the 4 I planted last year – 1 of them is already about 3 feet long, 2 others are sprouting, and the last one is either or about to sprout or dead.

It didn’t do anything last year either, so it might have been a non-starter.

So that’s Hop-Growing Tip #1: Go ahead and put at least 2 rhizomes in each mound.  In case one of them is a dud.  I’ve seen up to 6 per hill recommended, but that seems a bit like overkill to me.

Since one little guy is starting to get pretty tall, job number one for this week is to actually install the post so that I can hang the lines for the bines to grow on.  So far the first part is done – the base is now installed in 100 lbs. of concrete – hopefully it won’t be going anywhere.

Hop-Growing Tip #2: Make sure you have the area well prepped ahead of planting time – this is the real place I fell down last year.

If the area was completely ready and the post in place before I planted the rhizomes, then the maintenance would have been much easier and I probably would have kept up with them better.

As you can see from the picture, the area has also become a bit over grown, so the second job for this week is to finish clearing the area back out so that it actually looks like a garden again.

If you’re still trying to decide on a design for your trellace I’ll have more details on that next week.   Be sure to subscribe or bookmark this page so don’t miss that as well as the rest of the backyard farming shenanegans – and hopefully some useful tips too!

Tagged as: garden, grow, hops, planting, rhizomes