Hop Garden Update #3

It’s actually been a little more than a month since the last update and things are moving right along.

Today’s first tip is to make sure you write down what you planted in each hole.  I was sure that this really tall guy was a Cascade, but according to the map I made, he’s actually a Willamette.

Although, its possible that in a fit of dyslexia I made the map wrong.  We’ll find out for sure when I finally brew with the fresh cones!

The previous tip on planting more than one rhizome per hole is appears to be a good one.  The Cascade in the back corner seems to be MIA and the Hallertau in the front corner is a bit of a runt.

There was a really good podcast on The Brewing Network about growing your own hops recently.  The general advice on varieties seemed to be that the European ones don’t really grow that well here.  Particularly here in the south where it gets quite hot.

Next year I’m going to replace that Hallertau with something else, maybe an Amarillo.  And replant the Cascade of course.

HopUnion has a really good pdf with lots of data on nearly all of the hop varieties available by country if you’re looking for some ideas.  Here’s the direct link to the pdf.

I also did some further research on fertilizers.  It looks like unless you have soil analysis done you’re just going to be guessing at best.

They aren’t particularly expensive, but I think I’m going to stick with what I’ve been doing for now.  Maybe next season I’ll investigate further.

So far I’ve just been using a basic Miracle-gro Tomato plant food.  It’s high in Nitrogen, which is apparently what the bines need for early season growth.  It seems to be doing the job, but the directions aren’t very clear on how much or how often you’re supposed to use it.

It’s pretty simple to use though.  Just mix 1 of the pre-packaged spoonfuls with 1.5 gallons of water.  I had been doing this once per week, but I’ve recently stepped it up to every other day or so and the plants seem to like that.

I guess they’ll start to freak out if they get over fertilized, so until they do that I’m going to stick with this plan.

Finally, I’ve also trimmed back the first few inches of leaves and excess shoots from the base of the 2 tallest plants.

The extra air circulation around the base is supposed to help keep mildew and insects away.  And pruning the smaller shoots leaves more nutrients for the larger/stronger ones.

So that’s it for now.  Just going to hold course through July and we’ll see how things are going as we get into August and September.  Hopefully we’ll get a few cones for some fresh hop ales!

Tagged as: garden, growing, hops