The Bar Towel

For those of you interested in getting hop rhizomes in the ground this year, Crannog Ales is currently taking orders.

Thanks for the tip!

BYO recenetly had an article on growing hops in pots when you lack garden space (which I do). I'd like to really give this a try.

Anyone else had success growing hops with limited space?

Nope, I have space up at my Mum's farm though, I'm curious what hardiness zones the various variety's are good in. When I was a kid, a neighbour, unfortunately since passed on, used to grow them.

icemachine wrote:I'm curious what hardiness zones the various variety's are good in.

I think they are good to zone 4 but am not sure. The Cascade is flourishing in my Ottawa climate (about 6 pounds of cones in year 3!), the Willamette will probably do well this year, but I'm not having too much luck with the Golding or Nugget yet. The latter two might be struggling because of the proximity to the Cascade, which may be starving them of water.

My cascade is doing well too... but the Mt. Hood hasn't produced much yet. This will be the 3rd year, so I hope to get a pretty good harvest.

Crannog is now sold out. You need to order in mid- to late-March to get some from them.

Freshhops may still have some but you will have to pay additional fees for the paperwork to get them across the border.

Well I got my order in on time, 4 each of Centennial and Kent Golding. Got the bed and trellising prepared up at the farm so as long as the growing season is long enough I will hopefully have a small harvest this fall

Thanks for the tips!

...okay, fine. I admit I only entered this thread because I thought it said "hip-hop rhyzimes," and you were challenging us to the first Bar Towel freestyle rap battle.

Which is the best way to go - rhizomes or hop plants from a nursery?

Are there any nursery's around here that would stock non-ornamental hops?

My fiancee wants to get the plants from Richter's:

http://www.richters.com/

icemachine wrote:Got the bed and trellising prepared up at the farm so as long as the growing season is long enough I will hopefully have a small harvest this fall

Don't expect much of a harvest in the first year. I got lots of bine growth (about 16 feet) but the plant spends most of its energy building the root system. The second year produced a good harvest but the third year was the big one.

Guestimates from my single Cascade rhizome:
- year one: 100-150 cones - maybe 1 ounce
- year two: 1-1.5 pounds
- year three: 5-6 pounds

They keys are good soil, lots of water on the roots and direct sunshine.

Gedge wrote:My fiancee wants to get the plants from Richter's:

http://www.richters.com/

I was at Richters over the weekend and picked up Cascade and Willamette plants. It's a bit of drive from Oakville but overall the plants look good & healthy.
I'm going to try the pot-grown style explained in the recent BYO magazine and see how well they flourish

jaymack wrote:

Gedge wrote:My fiancee wants to get the plants from Richter's:

http://www.richters.com/

I was at Richters over the weekend and picked up Cascade and Willamette plants. It's a bit of drive from Oakville but overall the plants look good & healthy.
I'm going to try the pot-grown style explained in the recent BYO magazine and see how well they flourish

Gedge: Marry that woman before someone else does!

Jaymack: Did they have any Nugget or anything else?

FWIW, my first season yeilded 8 cones from one cascade (I dry-hopped one bottle of beer). The other cascade & Mt. Hood didn't do anything. In the second year I didn't even get 2lbs of wet hops... most of them from that one cascade.

Hopefully third time's a charm. I've got WAY more shoots than previous years (I'll have select a few of the largers ones), and one is already over a foot long. I got my twine up on the weekend cause I'll have to start training them soon!

They also had Nugget and Hallertaur which looked healthy as well. $8 a plant.

They also had a small bags of leaf hops for sale but the bag only said HOPS. When I tried to ask what kind, the woman explained they were the "general kind". Not quite sure what that meant so I passed on purchasing it.

Cheers