Thursday, August 18, 2011

The first time hops grower


Since I jumped head first back into home brewing I decided why not grow my own hops as well.  I planted in the beginning of April after building a nice big arbor for them to climb on.  Waking up every morning I would bypass the breakfast table to go check on them in anticipation of new growth.  After a couple weeks of this  I was rewarded with sprouts coming out of 2 rhizomes, the cascade and goldings but alas the fuggles did not show any signs of life yet.  After weeks of the cascade growing like crazy and the goldings not to far behind I decided to carefully excavate the fuggles to see if it had any signs of growth.  Upon extraction I realized that I planted it to deep and it had buds sprouting from it.  Unfortunately I broke most of them during the extraction.  I replanted it in hopes of it putting out some new growth seeing that it was still early in the season.  I was rewarded by it putting out one sprout that is now 3 foot tall, I dont anticipate it growing more then halfway up the rope but am glade i did not kill it.


The cascade has now grown up and across the arbor already putting out a fair amount of hops for a first year plant.  The goldings has made it to the top but seems to be slowing down I am not expecting to get any hops this year from this one, maybe next year.  The fuggles is a slow grower it just started putting out side shoots but it is very small at only 5 foot.  The cascades should be ready to harvest in a week I am hoping to have a couple ounces after drying them.  Goto My project shop to check out more home brewing projects.

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