Hop Crop

September 4th, 2016 - Harvested hop plants. Only a few ounces wet from the Centennial and the new Cascade. Probably about 1 lb. from the Columbus. Set the hops on a furnace filter with a fan blowing over them to dry them out.

August 20th, 2015 - Picked the cascade plants today. Yielded 30 oz. wet from the transplanted Cascade and 6 oz. wet from the plat I left in the shade. What a difference. Took a couple of hours to pick them. Decided half way through harvesting the large plant to just cut it down and then cut it apart as I went. Then I was sure which parts I had sorted through and didn't end up double or triple checking places.

May 31st, 2015 - Over the last three weeks I've been training the Cascade bines down the diagonal piece of twine and they stopped growing about two feet from the bottom which is pretty fortunate. Since then I've been staying busy keeping the side arms from tangling around each other and creeping up and down the steel cable. Burrs started forming about 10 days ago and we currently have some mini hop cones forming. This seems really early but it's the same thing that happened last year.

Cascade likes its new home

Baby Cascade cones forming already

The Columbus now has enough growth to train on a piece of twine. Still no growth though out of the Chinook. 

1st year Centennial 

1st year Columbus

May 8th, 2015 - The Cascades have reached the top of the trellis and then some. My initial plan was to fold the bines over the center twine and have them droop back toward the ground. After attempting this I found the bines are actually very rigid and prone to kinking if forced to bend any more than 30 degrees or so. My next plan was to coil them up on the ground and slowly continue coiling as they grew. I tried that for a day or so but wasn't satisfied and thought they'd be more prone to bugs, animals, and mold that way. So I finally settled on stringing twine diagonally top to bottom on the trellis and attempting to train the bines to grow 'down.' They are clearly very stubborn and try to resist the training but with enough persistence I think I can make it happen.

Training Cascade to grow downward

Also the Centennial continues to look healthy for only being in the ground one month. The other two plants haven't broken the surface yet.

Centennial pokin' out

May 2nd, 2015 - The third year Cascade plant is about six feet tall already. I expect by mid-May the bines will have reached the top of the trellis and I'll have to play with slacking out some line giving the plant more room to grow. The Centennial rhizome I planted last month has just started peeking out of the soil. The Columbus and Chinook rhizomes still have yet to sprout. The Centennial gets about an hour more sun than the others because it escapes the shade of our Poplar tree a little earlier.

Cascade at about six feet

April 11th, 2015 - Finished hop trellis and transplanted Cascade from shaded fence area to its new home here. The poles are 4"x4"x12' buried three feet in the ground.

My simple hop trellis design