Ok not sure if this is the right section of the forum but it is an ingredient… I planted some hops a few weeks ago in my back yard and the other day it was snowing and the temp was to go down to 27. According to all the research I have done it’s better to cut them down and let them restart rather than to let them freeze. Anyone have any thoughts on this or have had a similar problem and if sow how did it turn out for you and also did I mess up?? ???
Being that they are ‘first year’ plants, you generally want to allow all the vegetation produced to remain. The more foliage, the more food the plant can produce. Hops are insane in their efficiency of producing enough energy to sustain top growth with all the excess being sent down to the crown to be stored for future use. The exposed shoots may end up being burnt back but you’ll usually have a few more sprout in a week or two. After they’ve been in the ground for a year or two, you’ll see many many more shoots coming up compared to the first year. Too many can cause unruly growth and create other problems so it’s advisable to remove all but a few to climb and produce your crop.
Its my understanding that many commercial growers mow the first growth of the season. This is more to control harvest times than any fear of a late frost though.
My plants are second year - I’ve poked around them a bit this spring and noticed 3 or 4 times the number of shoots getting ready to come up than I had last year.
How do the hops look? If they survived, let them keep going. Later you can clip them if they look weak. I know my hops can survive a light freeze, so yours may be fine. I found my strain in the mountains where it freezes sometimes as late as late-May. For the future, if you know its going to freeze, place a bucket or pot over the top, and that’s plenty to keep them insulated for a night.
Just wondering where you got yours? I’m not finding many suppliers that will ship to Canada.
These guys ship to France, so I’m assuming they’ll ship to Canada: http://www.ebrew.com/beer/hop_rhizomes.htm
Sorry, haven’t been on the forum in a couple days…
These guys are in BC and its who I got mine from. The normally start taking orders in Feb, but a quick check shows they still have some left.
There’s another farm not too far from me that club members have bought from (we found them on kijiji). They only have Fuggles and Cascade. PM me if you want more details and I can contact them for you if you want.
all my hops are second year. the magnum shoots are already 6 inches. no sign of the santium yet. sterling just starting to break ground. on the down side i had to mow my lawn :-X
Been out of touch for a bit with work and all and working around the yard doing the spring clean up.The Kent and centennials bit the dust. The cascades came back with a vengeance and are almost 2 feet tall so it looks like I will have to replant the other two… Lucky for me there is a green house that sells Hop plants already started so maybe that will give me a good solid jump on things. Thanks for your input next time I guess I will take my chances with the frost and leave them be or mulch the daylights out of them to be on the safe side. .
As long as the thread is here…
My EKG don’t seem to want to grow more than 5 feet tall. They’ve been there for about three weeks now and I scratched a little height marker into the post, they haven’t gone beyond it. Am I doing something wrong, or is this normal for first-growth? My understanding was that they wouldn’t produce too much the first year but they’d at least grow all the way. I sprinkled some fertilizer on them the other day so hopefully that’ll yield some results. My soil is very nutrient-rich and loamy, if that helps.
A few years back I had a first year plant do that. I just blew it off as it was a busy summer and a few weeks later when I checked it out it took off again. I guess maybe it just needed a break for a while. I also think that a cool spell in the weather may have had something to do with it. Just keep your fingers crossed and it’ll all be cool come next spring.
There’s your problem, You scratched a line in the sand and they just don’t have the guts to cross it! those aren’t hops they’re mice! ;D