First time with hop rhizomes

I picked up some hop rhizomes hopefully to plant them tomorrow. I’m working on clearing out a spot behind my garage. Which I plan on setting up a pulley system to an eye hook at the peak and send up 4 lines. How far apart should different varieties be planted. I bought 2 cascade and 2 magnum. Here is a picture of the location. It gets plenty of sun. and is plenty tall enough for some long shoots. What do you think? Garage is 24’ x 24’. So I should be able to space out the 2 varieties maybe 8ft a decent amount apart and just plant 2 of the same about 4ft.

My first year I planted Cascade and they did terrible (northern MN), I have since planted Chinook and Columbus which are doing great, the Cascade never made it. My advise is label them well, I have no idea what is growing where. Perhaps that is the reason people say to plant them a distance apart, otherwise I see no reason to space them more than a foot apart. Prep the soil well and water daily. I have a neighbor who grows hops on their 6’ chain link fence (variety unknown) and they do awesome, so I’m not sure why everyone thinks hops must grow high. But daily watering is vital.

My four plants are about four five feet from one another. I feel like that’s plenty of space. I grow up lines to the top of a six foot fence and train them back and forth.

The documentation that I had says, different varieties plant 5 or more feet apart, same varieties plant 3 feet apart. The root structures get large, so you don’t want different varieties too close to each other. Plus you want the rhizome plenty of space to take root, no pun intended! :wink:

I’ve read different varieties needs 5’. Same varieties need 3’. I suggest reading up on growing them. Lots of free info online. I gave up on mine because I travel a lot on weekends and couldn’t water them.

There you go. 3 and 5 feet. You have the space so use it.

First one, 4’ from the corner, then 5"-3" from there… I would put a 2’x3’ box around them to somewhat keep them contained. Maybe make the boxes out of 2"x12". Do nestle the boxes into existing ground about 4". Put a bunch of composted stuff in to about 4" from the top… Compact that, then lay in yer hops and cover with about 2" of miracle grow potting soil… Oh it’ll grow… This year let it grow till about beginning of july and save the two healthiest bines per box… Yes, cut the others right off! :dizzy_face: Let them crawl up yer twin! keep the deer away too! Next year should start gittin’ hops fer brewing… If you got some cedar shakes, write the name on it with a magic marker and stick it in the box, kinda like grave markers… Sneezles61

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MNwayne
." I have a neighbor who grows hops on their 6’ chain link fence (variety unknown) and they do awesome, so I’m not sure why everyone thinks hops must grow high. But daily watering is vital."

I grow hops on an unused clothesline in the back yard. While I think I might get a smaller crop than if they grew straight up and high I get plenty for my needs.
I find that daily watering is not always a must… By using a slow drip that allows water to seep down deep into the ground it’s okay to not water every single day. After all hops are basically weeds (useful weeds, but weeds none the less) and have grown wild without any help from man for a really long time.

Here’s what I came up with. I shrunk down the area I used. Same varieties are 2 feet apart and are separated by 7 feet from the other variety. I’m a little nervous about amount of sunlight. The magnum rhizomes have a taller climb since its offset closer to the peak. Bought a few bags of Scotts premium topsoil dug a good sized hole for each. Mixed in a bunch of the top soil down into the hole with my existing soil. Filled it until the rhizome would be about 1-2" from the top and covered them. I planted magnum vertical since they had small shoots parallel to the rhizome coming off the end and the cascade horizontal since it had some smaller buds coming off perpendicular. The cascade rhizomes looked puny compared to the magnum rhizomes. Pay no attention to the nasty looking siding on the back of the garage. It was overgrown and I cleared it all out but didn’t clean it well

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Hops like acid soil, so growing close to a cement block, well, the water has leached out enough alkali to alter read soil pH opposite to acid,alkaline. Thats why I would build some wood boxes around them, use imported soil. You can then control the pH of yer soil, which means better hop yeild! I grew hops for 10 years, but after our friend, family dog, was put down, the deer came in and chewed them into non existence… Sneezles61

Looking pretty good there! I like how you anchored down the twine lines. Mine are not as sturdy and we’ll see if they hold. If not I’ll have to go more secure method.

So far I have nugget and cascade growing. I got some Willamette but it hasn’t broke ground and since it’s been a month might not have survived.

Enjoy watching them grow!

If any of you up around here want hop rhizomes, mine are free! Centennial and Williamette. I would rather give them away then hope they will make it out in the woods… :persevere: Sneezles61

There is a fertilizer on the market called MirAcid. I think it’s made by Miracle Grow. It’s for acid loving plants like roses and blueberries. Might work well here.

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It does and use it in the spring when things are staring to grow, I wouldn’t advise using later, especially while budding and in the fall. Flowers/buds need P, potassium for their growth/developement, and in the fall time, if you use fertilizer, might cause the plants to think its time to grow again… Composted stuff works well, top dress after they’re growing and as it rains it will feed from the top down to the roots… Sneezles61

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After I got home from work I checked out my rhizomes. Found 1 of the 2 Magnum rhizomes had a couple shoots coming up. Nothing from the Cascade rhizomes yet. Yes the soil is quite wet. Just watered it after a warm day today the top was pretty dry.

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I’m in my third season of growing hops and love it. I designed a hop trellis that works for me. I have 2 rows about 12 feet apart each with 4 varieties a piece with tee posts and a wire running about 8 inches and 4 feet above each row. Then I have old telephone poles in the middle and parallel of the 2 rows running a wire to the south side of my barn. This wire is probably about 14 feet off the ground. I tie twine from the bottom wire to the 4 foot wire and then over the 14 foot wire to the other row’s 2 lower wires creating a tent style trellis with the first 4 feet vertical instead of angled. This allows the bines to grow longer without being so high in the air that I can’t reach them with my 8 foot step ladder. I like to keep the bines intact until the fall to allow the roots to store as much energy for next year as possible, so I don’t want to cut them down during harvest. My bines got so heavy last year that the top wire sagged down. So this year I added another pole midway to better support the top wire seen in the pictures below. I have some bines already 8 feet tall this spring, so some might surpass the top wire.

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The one Magnum rhizome seems to be doing well. I’m nervous that the other Magnum and both Cascade rhizomes aren’t growing. Is there anything I can do or should I just leave them be?

Where are you located? I know this is first year, but it seems like you should be a bit further along. I wouldn’t worry about the others, sometimes they take a while. Make sure the soil is moist, and I’m sure they will pop up soon.

Northeast Ohio. They probably could use a little more sun. But the spot was good for setting up the trellis and the ground slopes away.