Well… So did I! Good ol’ Humulus Lupulus. Making beer and gardening are two of my favorite past times, so it only goes to figure that eventually I would be growing my own hops. Around the end of April, my local homebrew shop finally got in some hops rhizomes. They will typically only have them at this time of year, so some early planning is most certainly needed. I headed over there and picked up two seperate rhizomes: one fuggles and one Mount Hood. Both are nice finishing hops that, when fresh, will be a great addition to my recipes. That being said, I don’t expect to be getting alot of useable cones from these plants until 2008 (and quite possibly 2009!) That’s right… While I expect a good bit of growth this year, from what I read, I won’t get much yield on year one.
There are many resources out there for getting information on how to grow your own hops. Simply use Google and all the information you would ever want is right there. Might I suggest here and here for you to look at first. What I didn’t see alot of were exactly what to expect along the way. Certainly there are some tips and tricks that people stumble upon. This post, as is typical here at CapandCork.com, will be updated as needed and will walk through my hop growing experience.
Initial post:
- Here are the two hops rhizomes being started indoors. It was still to cold outside. These have been growing for about a week. Click HERE for picture.
- After a few weeks, I replanted the hops in an Earthbox planter after I took the time to string 5 strands of jute ran all the way up the back of my house. Yes folks… Damn near 30 feet or so! I was a firefighter for 10 years and I was a little shaky up on that extension ladder I must admit! Click HERE and HERE for pics of the hops in the planter. Note how they are wrapping themselves around the jute with no help from me. I read somewhere that hops can grow as much as 8 inches in ONE day! Well, I can tell you that in the 24 hours since that picture was taken, they are now wrapped around the jute 3 times! Click HERE for a picture of the back of my house and how high these hops are going to grow. Let me tell you how excited I am to get on that ladder again and cut these down… I hope it’s not windy in the the fall!
UPDATE: A bit of bad news. Of the three shoots I have going this first year… Two have been damaged. It appears as though the vine itself was resting against the planter. Well, as it is black, I suspect it got hot in the sun and “baked” a small section of the vine. My one Fuggles is pretty bad, and one of the two Mount Hood vines has some moderate damage, but I think is salvageable. The 2nd Mount Hood is just fine. (It actually made it to the jute today and is beginning to wrap around it.) Nothing I can do at this point about the damage other than hope they make it. I made it so it can’t happen again and I am just crossing my fingers that the vines somehow find a way to make it.
Yesterday, I posted a very basic recipe for a simple wine using Welch’s Frozen grape concentrate as a base. In honor of that, I thought I would start a new batch using that very recipe and post updates and pictures. If you are just starting out, this is a perfectly fine recipe to get your feet wet, per se. The pictures will give you a good idea of what to expect as the process moves along. Does it turn out like Chateau Mouton Rothschild? Absolutely not! It is however a very drinkable wine that will teach you the basics for a very reasonable amount of time, effort and money. Head on over to the 