Hop Growing 2010

[Andy__]

I NEED ADVICE!

i planted progress and challenger hops in pots this winter... now they are as tall as my house!!!

its a pretty big house and when measured the hops were growing 7.5 inces a day!

the problem is i want them to stop. if they climb any higher they are gonna obscure the sky dish.

i was planning on cutting the tip off the bines to stop the upward growth but is this the right thing to do or not?

Oh and ive noticed blackfly on them aswell. bastartdos! anyone know any good products/methods to get rid of em?

Yeh I nipped the tip last year. It makes them so much more bushy and I think I got more cones as a result

[WishboneBrewery]

Fuggle looks to be developing flowers

[Blackaddler]

Oh and ive noticed blackfly on them aswell. bastartdos! anyone know any good products/methods to get rid of em?

The cheapest way is to get an old trigger type plastic bottle [the type that cleaning products are often packaged in], add a good squirt of washing up liquid, and fill with water. It works well on most aphids [greenfly, blackfly etc].

[coatesg]

Fuggle looks to be developing flowers

My Golding has the first inkling of flowers too. First Golds don't seem to be flowering yet, but they are new this year.

[bosium]

My Saaz and Mt Hood have been putting off tons of side-arms. I've been snipping the lower ones off the plants as I still want them to grow taller and I'd like them to concentrate their energy in the upwards direction. They're about 1.5 along the horizontal part of their trellis already, hoping for a couple more metres before they give up and go to flower so that I can have some shade over my patio!

Hopefully I'll have some hop cones hanging down above my head soon

[boingy]

My Saaz and Mt Hood have been putting off tons of side-arms. I've been snipping the lower ones off the plants as I still want them to grow taller and I'd like them to concentrate their energy in the upwards direction. They're about 1.5 along the horizontal part of their trellis already, hoping for a couple more metres before they give up and go to flower so that I can have some shade over my patio!

Hopefully I'll have some hop cones hanging down above my head soon

Hope cones overhead sound nice until they start dropping lupulin on your clothes...

[bosium]

That's just a risk I'm willing to take, call me hopping mad...

[Manx Guy]

Hi

Glad to hear that your hops are doing well...

Mine are doing alright all things considered... the first lot of shoots were eaten by slugs despite liberal use of pellets...

I almost gave up and when I coontacted the Supplier (APLUS hops) they gave me some advice and offered me a replacement- I chose to percivere and am pleased with the results!

Then I had an insect attack which destroyed the main shoot tip on one of the 3 shoots to emerge after the original ones were eaten...
Its a tough little plant and the tallest shoot is now 4' high and has 4 -5 side shoots appearing....

Not sure if I'll get any cones this year after its tough start....
But hopefully I should be all good for next year!


Guy

[Chard]

well the hops are as high as the house and nice and bushy now.

notices some little flowers on the higher branches this week!

gonna have to look into the old vacuum packer now :S any suggestions?

[simple one]

Just a few weeks away and I have returned to find my hops in a right state. They are holier than the pope.

Sprayed them with an organic pest control. Seems as if there is wingless aphids all over the underside of the leaves.

Will it affect the harvest to much?

[bosium]

Well my two Saaz plants are making cones! Looks to be quite a few of them too. I don't want to jinx it but if I get enough cones, I'll be making a homegrown Bohemian pils with them to celebrate my first harvest.

My Mount hood plant looks like it might be making cones too. I'm really impressed with just how massive my plants have got, even in their first year - they must be about 15-18 foot tall by now. The most impressive is actually the Cascade plant that fatcontro11er sent me as it's caught up with my lager hops even though it was much smaller when I got it - the american hops are very vigorous.

What's awesome is that now they're big enough to make a shady canopy over my patio decking, under which I sit and sip my homebrew when it's sunny. Even the missus approves, although she was a hard sell at first! Next year my canopy will be all lager and I'll have to build something else for my ale hops.

[BarnsleyBrewer]

My Prima Donna is getting ready to flower.

[simple one]

That's my Phoenix with fully developed flowers Which is odd as it was the slowest grower. All the others still have the large "starfish" flowers. Still can't work out which will produce the most flowers.

[bosium]

My hops are almost 18 feet high and are *covered* in cones. I think I'm in for a bumper harvest.

I'm just a little concerned about drying it all - is there a special technique to doing this without losing lots of hop character?
Who's done this with success before?

[bosium]

First year cones!!

These are my Saaz: