It is pushing 60 degrees today in Ohio, and my hops rhizomes came in the mail today…So they got planted! I grew a couple Centennial plants and a US Gold last year with much success. So, I put a pre-order in to the Thyme Garden back in October. The quality of these rhizomes are amazing. I would recommend them to anyone. They are based out of Oregon, and when the rhizomes arrived here, they were sealed in ziplock bags and still very moist. The rhizomes I ordered from another company last year were dry sticks…these are far from that.
I ordered rooted cuttings of Magnum, Nugget, Cascade, Chinook, and Willamette. The smaller three are standard cuttings, which are very very solid. They are Zeus, Mt. Hood and Perle.
I now have 11 total plants of 10 hops varieties planted along the side of the barn. Hopefully the “after” picture is a little more appetizing than this “before” picture.
I forgot to mention price. The rooted cuttings were 7-8 bucks, and the standard cuttings are 4-5 bucks. They do have large cuttings that run the same as the rooted ones. I think the rooted and large cuttings are sold out. I pre-ordered in October. But after getting these, the standard cuts are very nice. Again, I pre-ordered rather early and it is first come first serve.
Once they start poking through, I will put tomato cages around them to start them, and then run a twine of sort up the side of the barn and attach to the fascia. That worked well last year for my Centennial and Goldings…They are planted where the red mulch is half way up the picture. So as harvesting goes, I will just cut down the entire twine. I did get a small harvest last year off of one of the Centennials, and we put them in a brown paper bag and put them in the loft of this barn for about a week. I shook them once or twice a day, and with it being about 100-120 degrees in the loft, they dried out nicely. I had about two ounces of dried hops, so we just used them to garnish IPA’s. But in the future, I will shrink wrap the hops in manageable sizes and store them in my chest freezer.
I actually moved one of my Centennial plants about two feet, so it was closer to my other Centennial and not the US Gold. In doing so, I got about six of my own rhizomes. I just went ahead and replanted them in a different area of the property. They won’t get taken care of like these ones will, but we’ll see what happens to them 8)
I ordered some Centennial rhizomes and planted them in a pot to get them started yesterday. I’ll eventually transplant them when they mature a bit. It’s still a little on the cold side here to plant them outside right now.
I potted my centennials last year and actually lost one after the transplant. I was worried about it being still a bit too cold here too, but the reps from the Thyme Garden said if there’s no snow on the ground and I can get I shovel in the ground, then plant them. So I went with that. I figure that the rhizomes are looking very hardy, and if anything comes up too soon and dies off, there will be more shooters on the way.
Seems like a quality purchase either way. I paid $7 per rhizome + shipping and got two cuttings per order, in more or less the shape and size of a pencil, with one shoot just starting.
I did get a nice stack of 2x12 redwood, so I just dug out my planting areas, boxed them in, and filled it with 6 months of spent-grain and sawdust compost. Planting soon!
How does Spent-grain effect compost? MY Brewbuddy and i where worried that to much in his bin would totally kill it. We where also worried about to much hope trub for the same reason. Anyone have any experience with this?
The worms et alia all appear happy with it. When I dump in all my spent grain and hops, I mix in a combination of sawdust & vegetation, mix, and then cover with a layer of vegetation to keep flies out. It’s a 6-sided scrap-wood tumbler. Regarding sawdust, I happen to generate a lot of it and this combo makes for easy disposal.
Spent brewing ingredients have performed excellent for me in my compost. Just make sure the grains are mixed a bit as if you leave them in a large pile they’ll produce some pretty funky aromas. Once composted they seem to give the compost a really workable texture. Good luck!
I’ve read on these boards that spent grains are high in protein, the theory being that you just removed all the starches. I have no opinion about browns vs greens, but I’ve noticed that spent grains decompose quickly if kept moist.
Spent grains are considered green material because they are a source of nitrogen. If you add them to the pile, you have to add a lot of brown material to keep the compost from going anaerobic. This can happen pretty easily since spent grain is very wet and will compact down when dumped out.
To the OP, those rhizomes are nice. Much better than the ones I got years ago.
I’m a terrible gardener so I’ve killed too many rhizomes to admit. I’ve ordered several times from Thyme Garden and been mostly pleased with what I have received. The larger rooted cuttings are worth the money IMO. I have a sterling and mt. hood I bought as cuttings from Thyme Garden last year and they are already sprouting up nicely. I had a nugget rhizome I bought last year but could never get to take off. It doesn’t look like it rooted well and didn’t survive the winter. I bought a couple more nugget rhizomes to try again this year along with a couple cascade rooted plants from Arrowhead hops up in Michigan so I’m hoping for better growth this year.
Thanks! I might not brew the best of beers, but I can grow things lol. A lot of soil prep work paid off, and the rhyzomes were very quality. It also helps that we have had a pile of rain in June and continuing that way into July here in Ohio. I think we had a five week span last year without rain.
I’m hoping to get enough for one Tim (IPA) this year. Mine are first year and about 8’ tall now. But I’m at 1800’ and a full month behind everyone in growing season
Yeah, I was hoping to get enough from my second year centennials to do a single hopped IPA, but it looks like a may get some sort of yield from the first year hops too.
