Can’t wait for some more sunshine to watch these babies grow day by day! Anyone else have theirs sprouting out of the ground? These are chinook and cascade growing in chicken manure from our chickens.
Yeah, it will be a few more months. Some sites will let you pre-order. Keep checking back on this thread for updates.
Nice sprouts. Snow finally melted but temp still dips below freezing. I have some orders to fill for some friends with cuttings as soon as the ground thaws.
I just pulled my buckets out of the garage and ran some twine today. I’ll probably go get some plant food this weekend and get them going. It’s finally supposed to be really nice (IE above freezing) for more than a couple days!
Yay, finally home from overseas, and I come home to 7 out of 8 plants sprouting. 8th one isn’t sprouting because it croaked last summer. Might have got too much reflection off the west side of the house.
Has anyone grown them in pots? I’ve seen a video of a guy planting his first years in 5-10 gallon pots, and was hoping someone had experience with that?
Started mine in pots originally 4 years ago. Mixed manure and sand with potting soil. Make sure whatever you use has ample drainage including the pot. If the vessel is too small, roots will work their way out the drain holes in the bottom.
+1 for pots, and weep holes. I’m on 2nd year for my container stock- have them trained to grow up over arbor on patio. My notes for someone starting in containers is
- Can’t have too big a vessel to plant in. If you have the $$ and space I’d say something like half a whiskey barrel planter.
- H2O frequently, and as “Portage” said, have large drainage capabilities.
- fertilize @ sign of low nitrogen, especially once they get going- they really use nutrients up.
I just did a bit of mending of the soil with 1:1 potting soil and broken down equine manure. Gotta pile on the Horsesh** sometimes, don’t ya!!!
Hope this helps. They’re a blast and I tend to take better care of them than the ones I have in the garden.
p.s. 5 gallons is too small unless you’re planning on watering with fertilizer… been there. Gotta watch 'em like a baby in a kitchen!!
Thanks guys, will find huge pots, and plenty of horse sh*t which I’m lucky enough to have plenty of!
My only concern is the damn deer, they eat my tulips every year…and if they touch my hops…there will be hell to pay!
[quote=“noobsiegirl”]
My only concern is the damn deer, they eat my tulips every year…and if they touch my hops…there will be hell to pay![/quote]
Protect the young shoots.
After they get some height, usually deer won’t mess with them much.
Especially when there are tulips to be had. 
im scurrred to pull the straw off my hops to check if they are coming up yet…I piled on a healthy shovel full of manure last fall under the straw, and now I fear of a hot stinky mud pie on my hand if I go digging through there…Chances are, the shoots will make it all the way up through the manure and the straw when they are good and ready, right?
FreshHops.com sells some great rhyzomes. These were potted (note the heating pad underneath) last week and are already popping out of their pots. By the time the MN soil is ready, they’ll join my others (Zeus, Cascade, Goldings, Galena, Chinook, Mt. Hood, Nugget).
2012 additions: Centennial, Willamette, & Santium[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/scjdeke/]scjayson
, on Flickr
I’m excited. Just ordered two nugget rhizomes, and one chinook and mt. hood to bolster my existing plants.
mind if i ask, do you use your nuggets for bittering, and if so, do you just assume an industry average IBU range, and hope you’re close? Or do you use them for finishing hops?
n8young, i haven’t actually used any yet, like many of the hop rhizomes available. now i’ll have the opportunity to check them out at my leisure (once they’re ready for harvest, that is). I do like how they are kind of a dual purpose hop. Makes them that much more appealing to me.
My 2011s are being closely supervised this spring:
Golden guarding the goldings… Strider near the hop garden.[/url] by [url=http://www.flickr.com/people/scjdeke/]scjayson
, on Flickr
N8YOUNG— As long as the cha cha wasn’t too hot -fresh- then you should be fine and dandy. Tough little boogers can handle it unless your nitrogen is outragious.
I spoke too soon, my Cascade is growing back, Whoohoo!
Here’s my chinook plant…
Noticed today that my Horizon and Mt Hood have popped up.
[attachment=1]Horizon2 3-16-12 copy.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=0]Mt Hood 3-16-12 copy.jpg[/attachment]
I cleared some old vegetation off of the hills today and every one has purple eyes sticking up :cheers:
