Grow your own hops

March 2015

So cool!
I just planted two hops rhizomes I ordered online

As surprising as it may sound, these little plants travel by post for about a week and arrive in perfect shape at your place

For planting, I inspired myself from this excellent video, except that instead of the 24″x24″x11″ (60cm x 60cm x 27cm) wooden frame, I bought 22″ (54 cm) diameter black plastic buckets (the ones for cement), which are super cheap ($7) and require much less work except cutting off the bottom about 11″ (27cm) deep

I also anchored a twine directly to the bucket and up to some anchor point and protected the plants with wire mesh against crows who love to play and dig out these things

Grow hops

Grow hops at home

Quite some work, but hopefully I’ll be able to brew with my own homegrown hops this fall!

May 2016

The hops are doing fine, growing at lightning speed as expected
The bitter plant is growing faster and stronger than the aromatic does

Grow own hops Grow beer hops

 

May 2017

Once you plant hops, they will come back every year, stronger every time, with strictly zero care

I gave them poles for support and, hopefully, to have them grow past the top of the ivy

No cones yet

Grow hops in backyard

Grow hops in garden

 

August 2017

First cones!

Grow hops cones

So, it took roughly two years, but it would certainly have happened last summer if I had given them a better structure to climb on right away instead of some piece of twine leaning on the ivy wall

Surprisingly enough, the plant made cones only on some horizontal twine, but not on the vertical pole

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Brewer

Passionate about beer brewing, I try a new recipe every other week and share my experiences in the blog section with my faithful readers

5 thoughts on “Grow your own hops”

    1. Hi Elliott,
      If your question is about hops growing, I have to say the results were not spectacular.
      The plants grew up to where they could, about 2m of string, but then didn’t develop cones.
      I might try again this season, but apparently you definitely need to give them several meters of string to be happy, like 5-6m at least.

  1. Hey Man,

    Just come across your your blog. Awesome stuff. I am keen to grow my own hops too. However, I live in an apartment. In your humble opinion, do you think hops could grow in pot plants?
    Cheers,
    Dan

    1. Hi,

      I have a friend how grows some hops in pots on his balcony with some success.
      Just like any plant, they will limit their growth depending of the size of the pot.
      If you want them to grow big, give them a very large pot or grow bag or plant them directly in the ground.
      This is how big they can become

  2. Thanks for the feedback. I am going to give it a go. Would like to make beer with my own hops, even though I live in an apartment. Will investigate options for bigger pots/grow bags.

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