Hi Everyone! I pulled the mulch off my Cascade today and found all these shoots. This is the plant’s second year and I’ve read many times to trim off all the first shoots. Would you trim back this many shoots? Some of them broke when I pulled the mulch out of the planter box.
I thought only 2 or 3 shoots were to be saved… Sneezles61
That’s what I’ve done but I just read to cut all the 1st shoots. I may try that.
I’m gonna cut all of them and see what happens. I’ve heard they’re hard to kill.
You surely won’t kill them. I’m ripping out some disappointing Willimete and splitting my Chinook.
My hops are in their 5th year. Cascade is a beast that must be tamed. You will have more shoots popping up on this variety than you’ll know what to do with. I threw 6 inches of partially composted horse manure on my hops last week, and the Cascade shoots are pushing right through it. Before you know it, you’ll be finding shoots outside that box popping up on your lawn. Trim away without fear. It will just laugh at you and take it as a personal challenge to throw more shoots up!
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My Willamette seemed like the runt of the litter last year compared to my C hops. Thank you for the reassurance @brewdvm. What other varieties do you have?
Chinook Cascade and nugget all do well
When I had hops, my Willamette said… well dammit, I aint growing here, too… Sneezles61
My Willamette’s are also the worse producers. I can barely get an ounce from them. I’ve added a heap load of manure and compost on them this year and will probably try Miracle Gro this summer. I will either kill them or they will produce. I guess I could split off some roots and increase yield by increasing the number of plants. I also have Chinook and Nugget which are heavy producers. My Tettnang will produce a few ounces but seems much more interested in spreading roots and shoots. I also have Mt. Hood that finally produced last year, Goldings that also doesn’t produce much, and Amalia which is a New Mexico native that produces fairly well.
Sneezles61
Boy, they certainly don’t produce much of a crown, huh? I bet mine looks just like that.
They are pitiful. The others are much more robust. Much more
When Jimmy Carter signed H.R. 1337 into law, allowing us to make our own beer legally, my dad went out and got everything a home brewer could need. He specifically wanted to make the “real beer” he had fallen in love with while stationed in Germany. The hops he planted in our backyard are there to this day and , though neglected, produce a fair amount of hops while not being trained, thinned or cared for in any way since 1978.
Now that I’m a home brewer my Mom and Dad harvest their hops for me and I split the batch with them.
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Nice
He never succeeded in making the beer he wanted and bottles sat “aging” for a long time until I started dipping into it when I was 18. I had my mom give me all the 37 year old ingredients that were still in the deep freezer and I made a fairly potent and astringent beer out of it. I did not use the yeast from then which was simply labeled “lager yeast”. That beer made me and my buddy feel weird, in a good way, and I wonder if it’s because I used so much ancient hops in one batch because I thought they wouldn’t do anything.
Bit late getting these in the ground but figured it was worth a shot as the wife told me to go for it provided I took care of them. 
Probably a bit close together but will see how they do. One chinook and one cascade.
Rad
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My Chinook is like an anaconda
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I’ll bet come next year, your deck will look awesome covered in foliage… I wouldn’t Ley anyone sit too close to it tho… They may become entwined by the bines! Sneezles61
