Growing Chinook Hops - The Initial Planting

jeffjagoe (72)in #beer • 6 years ago

Growing Chinook Hops

The Initial Planting

This year I decided to try something new. A few weeks ago I bought 4 Chinook Hop plants from Stark Bros and decided to plant them in my backyard. I bought a wooden arched trellis from Amazon for the plants to grow up. I put it together and set it up along the fence. When the plants arrived they looked like they could use some care. As you can see in the photo below the leaves were getting crispy, so I was desperate to get them into the ground.

I planted the 4 hops at each outside corner of the trellis. I did a little bit of reading (although not much) regarding growing of hops. It doesn't seem too hard and lately there is an explosive increase in craft beer and local brewing. Fresh, local grown hops are going to be a hot commodity. Although I have never brewed my own beer before, it might be fun to experiment with some backyard hops in the future. The little guy in the picture below looked to be the healthiest and greenest.

I planted the hops into the ground and it seems like they are slowly beginning to acclimate to the soil. New branches are popping up and the leaves are starting to look flush and green. So far only one plant has reached the trellis and has begun to grow it's way up. As you can see in the photo below, I used twine to tie this plant to the side of the trellis in an attempt to train it's growth. All of the hops are looking much better than they did the day that they arrived.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with my harvest (if I get a harvest), but I will definitely continue to document my journey along the way. Maybe if I get enough I can dish them off to a local beer maker, or perhaps I will make the beer myself. It would be really fun to drink a hoppy product from my own back yard!