Reclamation Project (Hops and Our Garden)

Our garden has suffered neglect for at least two years. When we first moved into this house, we were excited at the prospect of so much space: more yard, more garage, more storage... We wanted to put the garden in the sunniest part of the yard, but it had the worst soil. In order to take advantage of the sun, we had to build raised beds.

After constructing four large (72 square feet each) beds, we soon discovered all the critters were drawn out of the woods by our new vegetation: the deer and rabbits had their way with our produce. Next came the fence!

This was an unexpected expense, so I built it on the cheap... I ended up using "cherry" landscaping timbers instead of decent treated posts, along with 60 inch "rabbit" wire. I soon realized that the deer could easily make it over the 5 foot wire fencing, so I added two rows of single-strand aluminum electric fence wire to extend the fence height to 7 feet. The posts made it five years before the first one rotted and failed. One-by-one, a handful of other posts began leaning. The sagging fence was the final straw - it was time to fix up the eyesore that was once our garden.

Of all the victims of our neglect, the saddest to me was my burgeoning hop collection. Two years ago, I harvested close to 10 lbs, of hops (wet). I'm pretty sure that was the last time I harvested, and did nothing in the way of maintenance since: no pruning back, no fertilizing, no supplemental watering... It's a bit depressing to think that I had gone from 10 lbs. from 13 varieties to completely ignoring them altogether.

As I prepped to replace the fence and shape up the garden, I eyed my pots of hops. The pots are arranged alphabetically, and the first in the bunch was Cascade: a complete loss - rotted out by poor drainage (and a pot that had apparently been dumped then righted). It got better after that, and despite my laziness, the rhizomes themselves were thriving - completely filling the pots (especially the Cluster).

I trimmed things back, saving a handful of starter rhizomes for friends before carefully repotting. This is my 2nd, and in a couple of cases 3rd, division and repotting. Recommitted to their care, I am hopeful about this years crop.

Now I need to get back to work on the fence and reclaiming the rest of the garden!

The Hops Are Coming! The Hops Are Coming!

Well, they're sprouting up at least. I noticed right around the end of March that there were some green nubs poking up through the soil in my hop containers - and a little over a week later, they all have significant growth!

I got the twine hung, so that the bines have something to train along before they go too crazy. Last year, I had 3-4 twines running up at an angle to one central point (a 15' piece of rebar). This worked well (and my wife was happy with the aesthetics), but once the bines reached the top in around August, they got all tangled up. This made it more challenging to keep the hop sorted out when I harvested them.

This year, I moved the two pieces of rebar to the extreme ends of the area planted by hops. I strung a piece of aluminum wire horizontallybetween the two pieces of rebar (this is similar to what the hop farms in Yakima do). I tied each piece of jute twine to a zinc washer, then threaded that onto the aluminum wire. This will make harvesting the hops way easier, and will keep the bines from getting tangles since they will grow straight up this year.

Judging from the density of the shoots sprouting up in each container, this will probably be the last year that I can keep the rhizomes growing in them. I started the rhizomes in containers last year, because I was not sure if this location was going to be conducive to the hop growth - clearly it was, since I got well over a pound of hops in the first year! I actually had begun preparing the soil at the foot of the raised beds so that I could move the hops this year, but by the time I got around to it, they were already coming up. I didn't want to risk it, so I'll move them for next year.

I am excited to see if my yields increase this fall!