And then there were three....

Disaster (a.k.a. the dog) strikes! Let him out yesterday morning and found this when I went back out to let him in:

The Galena has been entirely destroyed:

I have replanted the rhizome but I don't have high hopes. It wasn't doing nearly as well as the others but I'm still sad to see it go. Now, I didn't see the dog do this so it's always possible he was set up by some particularly industrious squirrels. I also haven't entirely ruled out the cats as I didn't seem them together during this time either (they are nearly identical litter mates) and they are generally very shady characters.

Not something I wanted after having been away for over a week. On the bright side, the others have been very busy growing. The Willamette and Cascade are growing into and around each other:

I have separated them for now but that will not last very long. The Columbus is also doing pretty well:

I will need to come up with an arbour solution soon, the heights I have measured for them are more like lengths right now. I'm thinking that tomato cages like I used last year will give me a little breathing room. They will also protect them from excavating animals to some extent.

We have lift off

We've had a fair bit of rain and drizzle recently. Hasn't been great for doing things outdoors but it has been great for the hops. They are all looking very healthy right now. Here's the Willamette:

 

The Cascade:

The Galena, which is still very close to the ground:

And the Columbus:

I've even been inspired to start measuring their height, as you should be able to see in the top right hand corner.

Something else that became obvious to me this afternoon is that now that the other trees nearby are starting to leaf out my hops are going to be getting less direct sunlight, particularly in the afternoon:

This may look lovely and picturesque but I can't help but think about my hops getting less light. I'll just have to content myself with what they'll get in the morning.

Maybe not such a good excuse after all

So it seems that the Columbus has not been the only rhizome investing in other shoots. The Galena recently had three more shoots appear above ground:

They're just about visible here, honest. The first shoot is leafing out nicely so I'm hoping for some acceleration in growth now. 

The Columbus is also is also leafing out:

Two out of the four shoots have open leaves now with the other two close behind.

The Willamette on the other hand is sticking to its eggs in one basket strategy:

This is consistent with what I saw last year in Houston. It was some time until I saw a second shoot appear from that Willamette. It did end up being the tallest of the hops I had there, though perhaps not the most productive in terms of cones. It did produce the largest cone of the bunch (pictured in the photo I'm using for my background).

The Cascade seems to be pursuing the same strategy but is lagging behind a little:

Leaves are clearly not as open as the Willamette but I'm hoping it ends up being just as successful as the Willamette was last year.

Overall, it's looking very promising right now, particularly when you consider that they have been in the ground for less than two weeks.

And we're off

Almost exactly a week after having prepared my raised bed and planted my newly arrived rhizomes, the very first shoots are visible. Here's the Willamette:

Willamette was always my star pupil in Houston. Here's hoping it continues to do the same here. This is the Cascade:

Looking a little anaemic, so has probably only just poked its head above ground in the last day or so. Here's the Galena:

Looking pretty healthy. So far no sign of the Columbus but it's early days yet.

All of this means that I'm going to have to get on with plans for my hop arbour. There's plenty of detritus from the rest of the garden that may well prove useful.

New season, new state, new hops.

A lot has happened since my last post. I'm no longer in Houston but have moved to the DC area. This unfortunately meant leaving behind all the work I did last year. I'm hoping that this loss will be compensated by more favourable growing conditions further North, particularly with the longer summer days. I have no idea whether the hops I left behind will be retained by the new tenants. While we were away the landlord's gardeners had ripped out all of the plants in the raised beds in the garden. The only exceptions to this were some asparagus and my hops. I very much like the idea of the next people there being pleasantly surprised by hops appearing this year, the asparagus was well established too.

On to this year. Our new garden does not have any raised beds so I have just had to make one. Why bother you may well ask. If there is one consistent thing I have read about the requirements for hops it is that they do not like being water logged. Rhizomes will rot if they spend a lot of time sitting in water. Drainage becomes the most important thing as they are really not very fussy otherwise.

I thought I'd use my first post this year to detail how I've made this raised bed (laugh a minute on this blog). First off I used timber that you should be able to get at any hardware store or garden centre. For this I bought 5 x 8ft lengths. The two long sides each have two on top of each other and the fifth length was cut into four 2 feet lengths which are stacked two high at the ends.

The whole thing is stabilised by having the corners overlapping, holes drilled through both planks and then nailing the them together. Ordinarily I would have chosen to use an iron bar of some sort for this but I don't have any way of cutting one. So I spontaneously invented the bamboo nail, by cutting single sections of some bamboo we had lying around the garden:

I don't really know if I've invented this but googling "bamboo nails" isn't very helpful and returns results for nail salons. Patent pending I think I'll call this for now. Each corner had three holes drilled and a nail driven through and into the soil, which should help to keep the whole bed in place:

With the frame in place the next step is to try and discourage anything from growing up through it from underneath. To this end I covered the ground with cardboard:

As I mentioned before, drainage is very much a concern. To help with that I added a layer of gravel:

Now we're ready for the earth itself. I reckon the volume of this bed so far is ~8 cubic feet (8x2x0.5) so I bought 5 bags of earth, each 1.5 cubic feet, giving me 7.5 cubic feet. This actually slightly over filled the bed:

You may or may not be able to tell from this pic but the earth is somewhat piled up. I suspect this will settle down with watering, rain, etc.. The cost of all these materials came to ~$50.

Next step is to plant the rhizomes, which arrived the same day as their bed was made (being able plan things around shipping estimates is great). This year I bought my rhizomes from Austin Home Brew, which is where I get all my homebrewing ingredients and kit. This year I got Willamette (particularly given how well they did in Houston), Cascade, Galena and Columbus rhizomes. I've updated the hop height graph at top right. It will probably be a couple of weeks before there is anything to report there though. Here's a pic of the Willamette being planted:

All of these rhizomes looked promising, as judged by the fact they all have at least one new shoot coming out from the main root. You can see two in the pic above. The rhizome is placed in a hole a couple of inches deep, covered and then the whole bed given a good soak:

We even got a good amount of rain last night to help. It remains to be seen how well the rhizomes have survived the journey through the post. Last year I bought them directly from DeFalcos in Houston and planted them as soon as I got home. Fingers crossed they all survived.

The ultimate goal, other than producing some hops to add to my beer, is to have them grow over some garden furniture to provide some shade. At the moment I'm thinking of a sturdy porch swing but it will be several weeks before a final decision needs to be made.

This has ended up being something of a marathon post. I suspect future posts will be a lot shorter and sweeter.