Hop Growing in the garden

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Maybe you'll have to smell the dried flowers. I reckon I could separate Cascade and the other two that way, Not so sure I could distinguish between fuggles and challenger though, but maybe if you had the cones from a pack and compared them you can do it by nose.

Yer thanks cascade is citrusy if I'm not mistaken. I'm just happy they are growing TBH. I Can't get any thing to grow so well pleased. I in South Wales nice and wet so I think that helps.
 
With regards to location how much sun do they need?

Our back garden was done out by the previous occupants and although it's big it's full of other plants that can't easily be moved (apple trees, grape vine, fruit bushes, etc). Which only really leaves the back wall of the house (SE facing) over the conservatory (relatively fine) which means growing out of pots and the front garden, which is ideal for growing (currently bare walls, soil borders right upto the walls) but obviously get's less sun.

The idea of constructing a 30ft high frame over the front garden and driveway has already been veto'd :( and allotments are full for this year. Part of me thinks just grow them in pots this year and get an allotment and build the biggest frame possible next year.

One of my hops is growing next to my house and I have tied string from the guttering to a stick half buried in the ground for the bines to grow up. This is next to a downstairs extension though so can be reached easily with a ladder. But it's possible to get string the same colour as the house to keep it minimally intrusive.

Hops can also be grown horizontally once they're a couple feet high or so. My Fuggles is next to the fence and if I grew it straight up I'm sure my neighbours wouldn't be too happy. I've attached a picture of it.

Alternatively, you can also get an arch and grow it around the arch. This looks nice to a lot of people and if you get hops from it then even better!

With both the arch and the string, you can leave the bines after the season (as opposed to throw them away) and they can be used for next year's bines to climb up.

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One of my hops is growing next to my house and I have tied string from the guttering to a stick half buried in the ground for the bines to grow up. This is next to a downstairs extension though so can be reached easily with a ladder. But it's possible to get string the same colour as the house to keep it minimally intrusive.

Hops can also be grown horizontally once they're a couple feet high or so. My Fuggles is next to the fence and if I grew it straight up I'm sure my neighbours wouldn't be too happy. I've attached a picture of it.

Alternatively, you can also get an arch and grow it around the arch. This looks nice to a lot of people and if you get hops from it then even better!

With both the arch and the string, you can leave the bines after the season (as opposed to throw them away) and they can be used for next year's bines to climb up.

Is that Fuggles plant in that little pot?
 
Hops can also be grown horizontally once they're a couple feet high or so. My Fuggles is next to the fence and if I grew it straight up I'm sure my neighbours wouldn't be too happy. I've attached a picture of it.

Just cut down 5 leylandi from the border, frankly the neighbors should be grateful of a 30ft frame after that!

There's also a dead tree and a telegraph pole in the front garden/driveway, wonder what the rules are about 'accidentally' growing hops up that are?
 
Just cut down 5 leylandi from the border, frankly the neighbors should be grateful of a 30ft frame after that!

There's also a dead tree and a telegraph pole in the front garden/driveway, wonder what the rules are about 'accidentally' growing hops up that are?

If I had a telegraph pole in the front garden, I'd definitely go fo it..! Gotta be more attractive than a plain pole for the neighbours (& SWMBO) to stare at....
 
my cascade (tallest one) and first gold a couple of days ago.....will direct the cascade away from the first golds to grow over an enclosed chicken run..hopefully the first gold will be ok on the frame. Hope the forecast cold spell doesn't knock them back.

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Planted my rhizome earlier this week...the instructions say to kill off bugs that may munch the plant with pesticide spray but I'm concerned that this may affect the beer, the taste etc....any thoughts on this from home growers?
 
Planted my rhizome earlier this week...the instructions say to kill off bugs that may munch the plant with pesticide spray but I'm concerned that this may affect the beer, the taste etc....any thoughts on this from home growers?

My wife is a permaculture grower so any sort of chemical is a big no in our gardens. My hops got aphids and one got wind burn but they were fine.

You can encourage aphid eating insects like ladybirds by making habitats for them near the hop, but in the second year it's likely the many aphids will attract many ladybirds. There are companion plants which you can plant around the hop to repel aphids. Dill and marigolds are two which spring to mind, the former is a lovely herb which can be used in pickling and the latter can be made into a drinkable tea.

We also have a wormery - worm juice is high in nitrogen and really good for hops, so we use that as fertiliser, plus we can use the compost from the wormery on the rhizomes. You can also get a bag of compost from the local garden centre.

My concern for using non organic pesticide is the plant will absorb those chemicals, then they will go into your beer and your body will absorb them. This probably won't affect the flavour of the hops though.
 
I've had success with companion planting for species that attract hoverflies.
One very cheap one is by growing rocket, because it runs to flower very quickly and you will get hoverflies if you do this. Hoverflies eat the greenfly so I grow it with lettuce and last year didn't find one!
Also wildflower mix has a type of daisy in it, and I keep the seed from that for the next year which they also go for.
 
Hello,

I have just purchased 2 rhizomes that I will plant as soon as they arrive in the post.

I'm aware it's getting plenty late enough in the season, but it's been a slow start to spring so do you think they will be Ok? I'm going by how slow grass is growing and how late the trees are to leaf up.

They will be planted in a walled garden- plenty of sun and out of the wind with typical Cornish climate if that is of use.

How far apart shall I plant them?

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.
 
Am i correct that you cant grow Hops from a cutting?

Yes, that's right. Seed or cutting don't grow true.
It's quite easy to split a rhizome though. If you have a mature plant you can split it after the growing season.
 
How far apart shall I plant them?

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

I planted mine 3 feet apart in raised beds with well rotted compost dug into the ground directly beneath them. I'v been away for a few days so need to go down the garden to check they've survived the cold nights.
 
That's fantastic. I'm definitely going to bite the bullet and get growing next year.

Tayside is fantastic for soft fruits, I wonder how the conditions will be for hops...
 
Cuttings will grow true, seeds wont.

That's what I thought when I read that post. A cutting is identical genetic material to the original plant. Wondering how long it takes cuttings to establish and get growing. If like me you have only a handful of hop plants, chopping of chunks of roots might set them back a fair bit.
 
That's fantastic. I'm definitely going to bite the bullet and get growing next year.

Tayside is fantastic for soft fruits, I wonder how the conditions will be for hops...

You can still get well grown rhyzomes from essentiallyhops.co.uk. They sent me one about two weeks ago and it was a good 'un. It might be worth giving them a ring. Even if it just got growing a bit, it would be a lot quicker to produce than if you wait another year. It arrived about two days after I ordered it by phone. It was a really nice specimen and it is above ground already - although not here..... It's only been in the ground about a week.
 
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