belsonc
06-29-2008, 04:32 AM
Hey all -
So, since I live in an apartment, my father has offered to try growing hops for me. He has a Willamette rhizome he had planted, which did nothing. He dug it up and transplanted it into a pot, and it seems to be working well there. I'm assuming in the next week or two, if it keeps up the growth, he'll try putting it back into his garden - and I'd think it's not the soil that's the problem, because we've had things grow in that garden that he never planted - he composted. Example - one year he might have green peppers growing. He doesn't plant those, but they definitely ended up in the compost at some point, and at least one of the seeds survived.
So my question is this - this will kind of be the second stab at growing these hops for him. I had ordered the rhizomes from MS, and he followed the directions from them - and from what I've seen and read on here and in my lurking on the NB forum, the directions weren't very good. So, what would you all suggest for him to try this time through? I told him about how I read about someone watering their hops 3-4 times a day for about 10 minutes at a shot, I think I read somewhere that you can't really water them too much unless you water them so much that they'll rot... other thoughts on what to do? And for what it's worth, he doesn't have a green thumb - he has a green hand. He'll buy the $3 half-dead plants at Home Depot, plant them, and a month later you'd never know they were half dead... so any help you can throw my way, I'd appreciate. Thanks in advance! :-)
-CB
So, since I live in an apartment, my father has offered to try growing hops for me. He has a Willamette rhizome he had planted, which did nothing. He dug it up and transplanted it into a pot, and it seems to be working well there. I'm assuming in the next week or two, if it keeps up the growth, he'll try putting it back into his garden - and I'd think it's not the soil that's the problem, because we've had things grow in that garden that he never planted - he composted. Example - one year he might have green peppers growing. He doesn't plant those, but they definitely ended up in the compost at some point, and at least one of the seeds survived.
So my question is this - this will kind of be the second stab at growing these hops for him. I had ordered the rhizomes from MS, and he followed the directions from them - and from what I've seen and read on here and in my lurking on the NB forum, the directions weren't very good. So, what would you all suggest for him to try this time through? I told him about how I read about someone watering their hops 3-4 times a day for about 10 minutes at a shot, I think I read somewhere that you can't really water them too much unless you water them so much that they'll rot... other thoughts on what to do? And for what it's worth, he doesn't have a green thumb - he has a green hand. He'll buy the $3 half-dead plants at Home Depot, plant them, and a month later you'd never know they were half dead... so any help you can throw my way, I'd appreciate. Thanks in advance! :-)
-CB