Thursday, April 3, 2008

61 Hop Rhizomes happy and warm

Despite yet more bloody horrible weather, all the hops are now potted up. The Midwest order arrived three days after posting which is pretty awesome, and I went to work before the rain came again.

These were individually packed and marked, and mostly in good condition - only two were soft and broken - but the worst one had shoots on both sides of the break, so I divided it and will try for two.... who knows what will happen.



61 Rhizomes are potted in the peat pots - warm in the heated greenhouse. And I have 4 pieces of root from the original cuttings, which I will attempt to get growth out of.



Tony's fresh home grown Nugget have been the most prolific growers so far and all 4 are green and north bound. (Green pot in front as well as mid left) The other 8 Nugget were in the first batch to arrive and 6 are above soil already.



The smallest and thinest rhizomes we got were all the cascades which is annoying as most of the members want them the most, including me. They are in the foreground of the pic above and only two are above soil so far. At least the Centennials are good solid quality.

The first aphids have also found the hops, I found two little buggers on the large Nugget, soapy water and vinegar dispatched them and I sprayed all the other shoots just to be sure.

I also took advantage of the sun yesterday and stripped out the blown hose from the Backhoe, covering myself and Jonathan in hydraulic oil, and also heard some new expletives from Johnathan who got the most of the spray. In taking out the hose I discovered two more that were almost ready to blow. So I took - or attempted to take both out, of course the last fitting would not budge - there is always one......... I need a 1 3/5" Crowsfoot wrench and the largest I own is 1 1/4"

Saturday's solid rain has played havoc with any plans to get poles up, the large forklift is still solidly stuck in the mud, and the forecast is no better for tomorrow and Saturday.

We will most likely be planting before we get poles vertical and buried.

Sunday was no better, the rain continued through the night , and was still drizzling Sunday morning, so the only work done this weekend was to mow the grass around the crop circles.

1 comment:

Bill said...

Very nice blog. That's a LOT of rhizomes. I'd like to welcome you to our 'Grow-Hops' group with over 1,800 members focusing primarily on the topic of growing hops. Visit us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Grow-Hops if interested.

Cheers.

Bill Velek