End of the line?

No not for the blog :) Recently my over-performing Willamette produced this at its apical meristem:

This obviously looks a lot like a hop cone, perhaps not unsurprising on a hop plant. Unfortunately, its appearance at the very tip gives me the impression that it has reached its limit, at least in terms of height. I suspect this is a measure of just how far it can transport water and nutrients from the soil. The fact that there is only one cone reinforces my fear that the Willamette has hit the buffers in terms of height. Also, I would expect hop cones to come in pairs:

At least these are doing well. I now have around half a dozen pairs of cones of a similar size. Fortunately, what appears to be a height restriction for further growth at the very top of the plant does not seem to be a problem lower down:

Here you can see the old, original leaves just about to fall off while being replaced by new extremely vigorous growth. There are now two new shoots making their way up twine from the top of the tomato cage and there is another nipping at their heels:

The Goldings are making good progress, in its own less hurried way:

It also has a couple of other shoots that are making an effort to climb the wire cage. I also found this little beastie underneath one of the leaves:

The sharper eyed amongst us will be able to see a spider has rolled a leaf around itself. When I saw it to start with I thought it was the work of a caterpillar. Wouldn't be the first time on these hops. Spiders on the other hand I assume will be beneficial in terms of keeping down the numbers of bugs feeding on the plants so I'm all for them. Something else I'm all for is this:

Not seen on the hops but red wasps (Polistes carolina as far as I can tell) are reckoned to be voracious consumers of caterpillars, which can only be a good thing from my point of view.

I guess I should also give you an update on how the Northern Brewer is doing. Its first shoot has now reached the top of the balcony railing:

I have provided it with some more twine to take it up to the same spot I started training the Willamette horizontally. I'm hoping it will be easy to tell which is which despite them sharing the same piece of twine.

Turning over an old leaf (and more bugs)

Something I have noticed more and more is that the older leaves on my hop plants are becoming discoloured and even brown. There is a definite gradation from top to bottom, which is why I think it is associated with age. It is most notable on the Willamette:

but can also be seen on the Goldings:

and the Northern Brewer:

Currently I am happy to attribute this to general aging and being constantly exposed to the Texas sun. It is particularly noteworthy that the Willamette is sending out secondary shoots in the same region as the damaged leaves, which are a healthy green colour. This is the main reason I don't think it is a nutrition problem. The same is most likely true for an infection of any kind. The shoots are possibly also a natural reaction to the loss of these old leaves. All of the plants are doing really well so I'm not worrying about it.

On a completely different, more bug related note, I found this guy on our tomato plant not too far away from my hops:

I was told initially that this is a tomato hornworm. I've left my thumb in the picture to give you some idea of scale, not a small critter. Further reading seems to indicate that mine is in fact a tobacco hornworm rather than a tomato one. As you can see by this picture they look very much the same:

The most obvious difference is that the tobacco variety has stripes on its side whereas this one has V shapes. Also, the "horn" at the back (looks more like a tail to me) is black on the tomato version and red on the tobacco. If you look very closely on my picture you can see the red tail disappearing behind a leaf. The moths they turn into are even more alike. Here is the tobacco one:

And the tomato version:

Glad I don't have to tell these two apart. I haven't seen any indication that the larva has moved from the tomato plant and onto the hops. Somehow I think it will be a lot easier to spot on the hops than the tomato plant and so will quickly be dealt with.

Cone today, beer tomorrow

I might be getting ahead of myself a little but I found these on the top of the Willamette:

Obviously this is my first year of growing hops, but these look a lot like hop cones to me. They're not big enough or plentiful enough to make a dent on a batch of beer yet but then it's only June of their first year in the ground. High hopes for the future. The Willamette is now well above the railings of the balcony:

One thing this means is that the part of the plant about the level of the balcony will be getting light all day long. It remains to be seen if this is a good or bad thing with the Texas sun. Also, I've had to consider what to do about further growth. I'm thinking what would be really nice is to have a hop canopy for the balcony. Would give us a bit of shade as well as a little more privacy from the neighbours you can see opposite.

In the middle of the balcony I've used a bamboo pole that we had elsewhere in the garden in the hopes that something would grow up it but that never happened. Think it was something we found lying around after Ike came through Houston. All being well and the Willamette will be making its way along rather than up.

The other two have also been doing really well. The Northern Brewer is nearly at the level of the balcony too:

Not only is it about to the clear the balcony but one of the secondary shoots it produced when I decapitated it earlier has now started winding its way up the tomato cage:

It may not be as tall as the Willamette but with two actively climbing shoots there may be just as much yield. I live in hope.

The Goldings are also starting to look like they might be making some effort. The main shoot has now grown enough to need some twine to grow further:

Not only that but I've just found the first evidence of secondary shoots:

I'm still hopeful that I will get at least some cones from all three but it's still early days for these last two.

Brazen!

We had some showers (along with some thunder and lightning) today that gave the garden a good soak, including the hops. This also means that the snails are out in force and there are always going to be some that fancy some hop salad for lunch:

Here are a couple of woodlice, which I have never heard of being a plant pest. They were probably just trying to avoid drowning, I think they actually prefer the damp though. I left them where they were. The snail on the left was a different matter. I just hope they can say "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee":

It also seems my excitement about finding buds that I hope will lead to cones would have been even greater if I hadn't been like some teenager in a horror flick and just looked up. Found these closer to the top (had to do some clambering on the railings to take the photo):

Looking down resulted in finding these buds, which also look promising. Seems they are also popular with the ants:

Haven't seen any sign of aphids so perhaps ants are also hop heads. Hope they don't like lupulin too much though as I have no intention of sharing. Might have to look up some anti-ant measures, or just leave them something more appetising somewhere else in the garden. Maybe they'll give me some of whatever they make with hops in return. I'm hoping for beer although will settle for mead, which is probably more likely. 

Darling Buds Of May

I just noticed today the first signs of the buds that will become the side shoots that the cones will grow on. Exciting times (for a novice hop grower anyway). Here are some on the Willamette:

They obviously have a very long way to go before (or if) I see cones but things seem to be heading in the right direction. The whole plant is becoming a challenge to measure (involves some clambering on the railings):

The Northern Brewer also has some, so I'm hopeful about it too:

I'm a little concerned about the really pale leaves at the top, but they do seem to be deepening in colour as times passes. It now looks like this now:

No evidence of any on the Goldings yet:

Early days yet as they only look like this:

I have also been finding more pests. These are what I assume are butterfly eggs on the undersides of the leaves of the Willamette:

Really don't want these guys hatching to become hungry, hungry caterpillars so I have been getting rid of them as soon as I find them. I have found at least one leaf that a caterpillar was in the process of wrapping around itself like a blanket. Fortunately I was able to unroll it and relocate (ie fling across the garden) the caterpillar inside. The leaf seems to be recovering fine. On the up side, I did find some of these little guys on the other side of the garden:

Ladybird (ladybug if you're American) larvae are apparently voracious little predators. If I continue to see things eating my hops I might have to transplant as many as I can over to help in the fight. Overall though, despite some damage from pests all three plants seem to be able to grow faster than the bugs can eat them. Also, I've been doing a lot more watering myself (only in the late afternoon or evening so there isn't any direct sunlight) of late as the temperatures have been in the high 80's low 90's F (approx. 30 degrees C) and we have had precious little rain. Fingers crossed hard we don't end up with a drought like last year.

The Northern Brewer that could (and stealth caterpillars)

So the Northern Brewer (despite earlier setback) has now recovered enough to need twine of its own. The rater of growth really picked up once it found some purchase on the tomato cage. I fully expect it to maintain this while climbing the twine.

This is what the whole plant looks like (for reference the tomato cage is about three feet high):

The Willamette is growing like there's no tomorrow. It's now just short of seven feet tall. You can also see how the colour of the leaves deepens as they age. Leaves at the top are of a much lighter shade than those lower down.

While inspecting it recently I found these caterpillars. They look so much like the stalk of the hops or a twig that I only saw the one in the middle when it lifted itself up (like in the photo below). I nearly missed the other one lower down completely. If it hadn't kept reaching for that leaf I probably would have. Greed was its downfall. I'm sure there's a lesson there for all of us :) Needless to say they were sent flying (once they'd had their picture taken for posterity).

The Goldings are still making an effort. The most promising growth is in the one shoot that has reached the cage. There are still only five shoots so I don't really want to thin them just yet. Will wait until more have started climbing the cage. Last one there will probably get the chop so more effort can be put into the others.

All told there's great progress with the Willamette and Northern Brewer but the Goldings are still not exactly stellar. They haven't given up completely though so I won't give up on them just yet.