Monday, May 5, 2008

3rd Year Hops are Sprouting

I just got some photos of my third year hops (Cascade on the right, Willamette on the left). It looks like they are both strong and healthy, with the Cascade pulling out to an early lead. I am hoping for enough of a harvest to do a full batch this fall (which really means that I am hoping that my parents take the time to water them occasionally).






Willamette
















Cascade
















3 comments:

AlphaAnt said...

Where did you get your starter plants/seeds? I've talked my dad into growing some at his retirement home in the mountains, I just have to get some seedlings for him to plant.

The Mad Fermentationist (Mike) said...

I used rhizomes from freshops.com . Hops do make seeds that you could plant, but there would be a 50/50 chance that you would grow a useless male plant. A rhizome grows a clone of the variety it was harvested from, so it allows you to grow a known type of hop.

You are a bit late in the season for this year, but if you can still find them and get them growing soon they'll probably do very well next year.

Good luck, hopefully your father will be more attentive to your plants than my parents are to mine.

Arn said...

I grew my own (though I never got around to using them) when we lived in St. Louis, but now we're in Sarasota (Florida) and I read that I won't get cones here (I feel the need to put that to the test). They grew at a fantastic rate! As much as perhaps a foot a day! Magical plants, really. I had a flagpole (~20 ft. tall) I ran cables up from about 10 ft. away, and by august, they were hanging back down from the top of it.