Grow Some Hops!

Information Presentation on Growing Hops
Last month I gave a presentation to my homebrew club, QUAFF, on the basics of growing your own hops.  Several have asked for the presentation to be available for reference.   Here's the general presentation on growing your own hops at home.  Post any questions in the comments.  There were several good questions at the end of the presentation.

How do I see the speaker notes!?

I have speaker notes added to much of the presentation slides but in order to see them, you need to view full window and select Actions, View speaker notes.  Leave open the pop-up, it will change when you move through the presentation.  Enjoy!

To see the speaker notes, you need to view the presentation in a full window.

At the bottom, select Actions then Show speaker notes

Homebrewers' Rhizome Swap Next Year!
This season, I think I was able to provide rhizomes to about 20 homebrewers with the hope that our local homebrewing community also becomes a hop growing community.  If you missed it, I will have plenty again next year!  Fellow QUAFFer, homebrewer, blogger, and hop grower, Jeff Crane, suggests we declare an official rhizome swap every spring.  Should be a great way to kick off the season each year and recruit more homebrewers to be hop growers.

Hop Harvest, First Pickings

Me harvesting the Chinook Hops.  This trio of vines always has a high yield with multiple harvests.

At last, fresh homegrown hops are here!  Today we pulled a few weeds, trimmed back rogue hop vines, and harvested our first batch of Chinook and Centennial hops.  I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

Michelle, posing at our hop farm in Escondido, CA.

During the summer, there's typically little to do at the hop farm besides harvesting.  There are 30 mounds yet we had a number of them that didn't do well this year.  This is mainly my fault for not visiting the farm more often early in the season.  This year, I need to tag or map mounds that never climbed or didn't even sprout so that I can give them attention next late winter.

Our bottom row of hops has finally produced.  We planted Centennial (near) and Chinook (far) last year.

Third time's a charm and our added bottom row is finally taking off.  I tried planting Cascade and Tettnanger when we first added this row a few years ago.  They failed maybe due to soil conditions, too dry, or the killer rabbits.  During the second year, we mirrored our successful top row by splitting rhizomes and planting Chinook and Centennial on the bottom row.  That year, mounds were brutally attacked by killer gnawing rabbits and while a handful were able to make the climb, yield was nearly negligible.  This year, we've increased the water flow rate, heavily mulched and fertilized, and ensured to allow plants to grow as full as possible at the base to deter those wascal wabbits from the main vines.

Many of the Chinook cones are papery and light, ready for picking.  Many others will be ready in 2 weeks.

Today was just the first harvest and you can tell when the hop cones are ready to pick.  They get drier or papery and become much lighter in weight.  You may also see some light browning on some cones beginning to develop.  This is when they are ready to pick.  In the early days, we used clippers and cut each one carefully off the vine.  Now, we just pull.  We try to eliminate the stem by pinching at the base.  After picking, my hands are sticky with a yellowish dirt color from all of the lupulin.  The smell, however, is hoptastic!

Chinook hops do very well here, lush full leaves with hop flowers growing at every opportunity.

Healthy, happy, and full, the Chinook trio of vines on our top row never fails to just go crazy!

The Chinook trio is loaded with hops.  Some are ready now yet we'll be be able to pick cones for many weeks.

As you can see from the above picture, the cones are in different stages.  I know the big hop growers choose an optimal timing for their vines and cut them down for a single harvest.  What do they do with underdeveloped hops or ones that have turned all brown.  My guess is that they make pellets!

Big ones!  Most Chinook hops that are ready to pick are fairly large cones.

Cone sizes and shapes vary with variety.  Hopefully, my hand gives you an idea about the size of the chinook hop cones.

Centennial hops at the top of the wire.  A terminating cone at the right.

When hops reach the top of the guide line, they often continue growing horizontally.  When a branch or vine ends, it always terminates with a cone.  When it does this, it will grow no further.  Also, if a climbing vine tip gets cut or damaged, it will no longer continue to grow.

A couple of our Centennial hop mounds don't always grow as thick and lush as the Chinook trio.  

Many hop plants are not successful until the second season.  I think the above vine was a mound that needed to be replanted.  Regardless, some mounds only have one or two vines that climb and yield is fairly low.

These cones are moist and heavy and will likely be ready in 2 weeks.

Time to fire up the dehydrator!  I need to build the box fan dehydrator I've sketched out in my mind a few years back.  If anyone wants to see how I have been dehydrating and storing my homegrown hops, click here for dehydrating hops or storing hops.  Cheers!

Hop Farm Season 2010

Kick Off to the Hop Farm 2010 Season

Spring, as expected, has come to California.  If you drive the freeways here, you know the recent warm temps after several periods of rainfall translate to green hills and loads of flowers.  Native (and adaptive) plants here know there's a short window of opportunity.

Luckily for my hop farm in Escondido, California, the soil is still moist making it easy to pull all of the unwanted weeds.  Along with a quick growth, this is typically the bulk of weed pulling during the hop growing season.  I knew that with all of the recent rains and warm temps, my hops are likely to be triggered for growth as well.

I had a couple of good recruits to start the initial work needed to kick off the season, Michelle and Kara (above).  I think many don't realize the work that goes into such a small farm but I can ensure you that buying hops at increased pricing is still a great deal!  I remember when hop prices were about $1 per ounce.  No homebrewer grows hops for economy.  Recently, though the previous hop shortage has subsided, hop prices at homebrew supply sources have increased to about $2 or more per ounce.  If growing hops was easier and cheaper, I'm sure everyone would do it.  Homebrewers grow hops because they want to follow an ingredient from the soil to their beer, ensuring the freshest flavor possible.

If you have hops already planted like me, all you really need to do is get rid of the competition.   Though I heavily mulch at the end of each hop growing season, I can't seem to avoid the weeds.  With  moist soil right now, at least the undesirables are easy to pull.  Nevertheless, its a pain in the (hands).  Rain, winds, and gophers during the off season transformed the landscape and require some damage control.  It simply takes labor, and a good chunk of it.

Lots need to be accomplished at the start of each season.  Of course, weeding is the primary task but other tasks will follow.  On the to-do list is terrace leveling, rhizome pruning, mound rebuilding, trellis maintenance, irrigation maintenance, fertilizing, mulching, and pest management.
For this particular area I need to re-level the three minor terraces.   Over the winter, erosion takes its toll and the runoff during storms attempts to re-slope the farm.  After weeding, I go through the rows and level out the soil.  Having leveled terraces is not necessary but I find it very useful when I need to use a ladder during harvest.

While pulling most weeds by hand in moist soil seems the most effective, using a pick and hoe has been very useful.  Pulling the roots of weeds is necessary since we've experienced that these weeds grow back if you simply cut them at the surface.  In fact, I've experienced weed-whacked areas that not only make it difficult to remove the rest of the weed but also allows regrowth throughout the season.

After clearing the farm, I tried to rebuild the rows and some of the mounds to the best I can (the girls were in solid weed removal mode).  I really need to prune the mounds this year but I'll save that until next week. Any takers for some rhizomes?  To prune the mounds, I chop around the mound and pull the roots extending beyond the mound.  After pruning, I rebuild the soil to form a sizable mound (typically 6-8" high).

I used to be really nervous about damage to the rhizomes but I've learned that hops are really hardy.  You can hack it up, bury leaves, or even dig up the entire plant.  As long as you do this at the start of the season, rebuild your mounds, and start irrigating, all rhizomes tend to recover quickly.  Above you can see the chinook breaking ground.

Looks like the winter did a number on one of my support beams.  Next week, I'll do a simple natural repair to squeeze more life out of this beam.

Hop Farm, July 3 2009 Part 1

The hop farm is doing well. The climate has been gentle thus far. Moderate to warm temps with coastal breezes and moisture. I will increase watering in a couple of weeks before I head out to Hawaii. Most mounds are doing well with a minor delay at the start of the season from rabbits munching on the initial plant tips. Sent from my mobile phone.

Hop Farm, July 3 2009 Part 2

As you can see, we're nearing a first harvest. This is one of the bottom row Centennial plants that has a number of cones ready for picking in about a week's time. The rabbits were not able to get the most vibrant of the mounds. Sent from my mobile phone.

Magnum, Hop Farm April 29 2009

I did a bit of work on the farm today. Cleared the remainder of weeds, leveled the soil, replanted two vojvodina mounds, inspected and repaired irrigation (set for 1 hour every 24hrs beginning at 5am), and Michelle mulched all three rows. Still left to do is replant three bottom row chinook mounds, restring several trellis wires, and install some chicken wire or some other form of deterring the wild rabbits. Also, I need to build the box fan dehydrator before harvest. Sent from my mobile phone.

Hop Farm Fertilizing and Mulching

We trellis wired the last of the mounds, fertilized, and mulched today. Since the bottom row hasn't been successful for the past two years, we heavily fertilized and mulched this area. We also changed the irrigation drippers at the bottom row from 0.5 GPH to 1.0 GPH. Hopefully, this will correct our assumption that poor hop growth was caused by nutrient deficient and dry soil.
Sent by my mobile phone.

Centennial Hops Rhizomes Split and Transplanted

Today we finished splitting the centennial hops on the top row to plant the bottom half. Total hop count on the farm: 10 Chinook, 10 Centennial, 5 Vojvodina, 5 Magnum. Look how neat those rows look now!
Sent from my mobile phone.

Hop Farm, March 22 2008

Half of the bottom row is planted with Chinook. I've tried for 2 years to establish cascade hops in the same section sadly without success. Chinook and Centennial, sharing the top row of farm, grow remarkably well. We leveled out more of the bottom row and plan to hit with a fertilizer and mulch it well. Hopefully, chinook and centennial will do just as well on the bottom row as they have been doing on the top row. Very tired after doing just about 4 hours of work. Ed helped out tons. He pruned nearly every mound! We will have a bit of time to do a little work tomorrow though Easter gatherings will keep us drinking more than working.
Sent from my mobile phone.

Planting Chinook Hops

Hop rhizomes are planted in mounds raised above the soil surface. They only need about 1 inch of topsoil above them. The soil at the hop farm is not the greatest but with a small amount of fertilizer or mulch, the hops do just fine.
Sent from my mobile phone.

Splitting The Chinook Hop Rhizome

Today we're trying to complete many of the needed tasks to get the hop farm off to a great start this season. Here is a split rhizome from the top row chinook hop. One of the chinook crowns was massive. This one alone was split to make 5 new mounds for 1/2 of the bottom row. All you need for splitting a rhizome to make a new plant is a small section of root showing new shoots. The bigger the hunk, the more successful your new plant will be during its first season.
Sent from my mobile phone.

Last Year's Hop Farm and Moblog Test

Really I'm just testing out my moblog ability (sending txt and pictures directly to the blog from my cell phone). I have several pictures of my hop farm on my phone. This was taken during the harvest in July of 2007. Blogger makes it very easy to send txt, pic, and video messages directly to a blog. With a pic message, I can still send 1000 characters. Now, I'll be able to blog from beer events anywhere! Here's a mobile cheers to ya.
Sent from my mobile phone.