How are your home grown hops doing?

My Cascades are doing the best. No cones, but the bines are already at 22+ feet.

 

Chinooks, Cascades, and CTZ doing the best as usual...the Chinook is massive and has cones from fully mature to just forming. Sterlings and Mt. Hoods were decimated by spider mites early on, but recovered somewhat. The real surprise this year are the Santiams (2nd yr) and the Fuggles (1st yr) which are thriving.

 

Most of my hops are first year and doing well. My CTZ, Centennial, and Crystal are f fairly small, all others got pretty sizeable for first years. First year Cascades have burrs forming. 3rd year Chinook and 2nd year Blisk are beasts, no burrs yet, but should come on soon.

 

4 year old Cascades just forming burrs. Bines at about 12 feet.

Cheers!

 

1st year plants and I got them into the pots late in the season, the Centennial is about 6ft now and the Columbus hops are about 4 ft. I don't expect to get much of anything of them this year.

 

Blisk?

 

I read that commercial hop growers cut back their binds about 6 six weeks before the longest daylight for optimal hop production. I tried it twice and found that certain hops for me in SEPA don't like it. Mainly Zeus. Anybody else find the same?

 

my second attempt at growing hops. (it will work this time, cause I am doing what I'm supposed to do) Cascade bine is 12ft or so high. no cones yet. Looks good! Since I'm doing the right thing, I'll have good roots and will have hop vines and cones just like you guys! Last time I tried 2 years ago with columbus but instead of letting just one or two bines take off, I let them all go. I didnt have the heart to cut em so of course the root system suffered. It rotted. I swear I did not overwater them. It was all me.

 

My tallest cascades are only 8-10 feet, but I've already harvested about 6 ounces wet and production is just starting to ramp up. I've got laterals everywhere, some have jumped to the chain link fence and are growing profusely down the fence. Also this year the cones are much bigger and fragrant than ever before. I'll take some pics tomorrow.

 

Slovenian hop from the late 70s with lots of wonderful new American qualities that were despised in Europian hops in those days (probably even in the PNW in those days). Not commercially grown. Bold resin, tropical fruits, touch of pine, citrus pith. Potent!

http://freshops.com/hops/usda-named-hop-variety-descriptions#usda_id_21238

 

My cascades are about 20 feet and producing cones. My fuggles and horizon about half that height and no cones to speak of yet.

 

I have four varieties going and this has been my best year so far. Mt. Hood and Cascade are both in full cone production with some fully mature hops I need to go out and harvest this week. Nugget is just starting to produce burrs and Sterling is still in the bine growing phase.

 

Cascade, Chinook, Zeus and Centennial all doing great. All have burrs and the centennial have form small cones. Going to be many harvest ale's on tap early this fall.

 

Finally got around to taking a pic, left to right: Golding, Tettnanger, Cascade, Centennial. All but the Centennial are 2nd year.



The Golding are starting to pick up again, the Tettnanger are a little stunted because of cutworms last year, and the Cascade...well it's difficult to see, but the bines are growing across the top structural sisal rope. The Centennial got planted late, so they haven't made it far enough to make the picture. From the ground to the sisal rope is approx. 18ft.

 

Here is one plot on the South wall, ties up to the roof at about 9ft.

That's Magnum in the foreground (year 1), Chinook (year 3), Cascade (year 1), and Blisk (year 2).

Same plot from the other side:

Blisk, Cascade, Chinook, Magnum, Centennial (year 1), Crystal (year 1), Columbus (year 1)

Then the second plot on the North Side of the house off the deck on the fence line:

Foreground is Santiam (Year 2), Tardif de Bourgenone (year 2), Cerara (year 2), Hallertaur Hersbrucker (1st year).

These are all pics from about 3 weeks ago and all the plants have boomed even more since then.

Aphids:


After about 5 soap sprays and some Miracle Gro I have gotten the Aphids back under control. There is an ant hill under the Chinook and Cascade and they farm the Aphids up my hops, so I am trying to kill the ants off too which seems to be working.

 

I had a real fight against aphids last year on my cherry and apple trees. The two trees on either side of my hop trellis are the apples. Haven't seen any at all this year. They were easy to spot because the ants would congregate on the leaves where the aphids were most concentrated. I hate aphids.

Anyhow, soap spray is what finally took care of them...but it was multiple sprays over the course of 2 months.

 

Yeah, I sprayed every few days over the course of 2 weeks and put ant killer at the base of the hops to deter the ants from going up the bines and to kill them as they take the poison back into the nest. Seems to be working. I also grabbed my bines and shook the crap out of them a few times to knock the Aphids off as best I could.

 

I really have no idea why the aphids didn't bother the hops last year. The ones on the apple tree were black, and the cherry were green. So, I had two different types...both were equally as frustrating to get rid of. Every time I thought I'd gotten rid of them, they'd show back up a week later. I didn't think to try and get rid of the ants.

I hope you have an easier time of it than I did.