Wed Nov 07, 2012 9:11 am
I have 14 plants in the ground this year. This is their second year in the ground. I have a 4' garden stake from Lowe's about 1' behind the rhizome and pushed them in about 1-2' to anchor them. I then ran Coir from the stake to an anchor point on the edge of the roof (about 20 ft. up). I have been playing with single string and two string set ups to maximize the hop growth. Plus it looks cool. I let the new bines grow about 2' before I start to train them. I also wait to see which bines are starting to grow the best and select 3-5 of them and trim back the rest. I then train them and let them do their thing. It is a constant chore to keep new brines trimmed back (just at ground level). Once the bines are going well, I trim the bottom 1-2 feet of leaves and shoots off to reduce the risk of fungus, mildew, mold, etc...
This year we got hit pretty hard with Spider Mites and they all but killed 8 of the 14 plants. We lost the first harvest (it was a very early harvest this year in NC and pretty damn weak as far as aroma and flavor). I am working with a local university who has a hop research unit and we brainstormed some ideas to kill the Spider Mites. Before we could really do anything a natural predator beetle showed up and in a few weeks killed off the mites and we are good to go, which was pretty bad ass. By the end of the summer we had all new growth, the hops recovered well and we had a small second harvest. Enough to do a few casks with.
I learned a lot this year especially with all the issues we had. Hopefully this will helpful info for all the hop growers out there in the BN.
TripelD
"Bart, a woman is like beer. They look good, they smell good, and you'd step over your own mother just to get one!"
-Homer Simpson