do you know what a rhizome is?
I didn’t know until recently, what a rhizome was. The rhizome is a root or stem, clipped from an existing plant. It apparently allows you got grow an entirely new plant from what appears to be a dried up old twig. To cut to the chase here, I actually purchased a couple of hop rhizomes from the local brew shop this weekend. Suzy’s brother and his friend came up specifically to get the equipment for their first batch of beer and I tagged along to give some semi-experienced advice. While at the brew shop, I noticed a box full of these dried up little twigs in plastic bags. The shop was cleaning out their inventory from the large number of pre-orders they filled earlier in the season. I decided to utilize my gift certificate (Thanks Laura and Roger!) to purchase a couple of these twigs. All along, in my mind, playing out a grand fantasy of being a hop farmer, tending to my hops in the spring sunshine – sipping a cold brew of course.
I sifted through the left-over hop rhizomes and chose two different varieties. Not really much of a hop-head, I was at a loss to what I should really choose. So I just randomly guessed and purchased the Nugget and Centennial varieties. There was tons of Hallertaur hop rhizomes, a more traditional German lager hop, but I skipped over those in favor of the more “interesting” varieties.
Sunday morning, I woke up a bit early (well for a Sunday morning at least) and decided that it was a perfect time to plant my new hop garden. After some fervent Internet research, I decided to plant the hops along the back fence (southern facing) which has a trellis already built into it. I began to soak the rhizomes in water, prepping them for their final destination in the ground.
After removing a copious amount of weeds from the two spots I had chosen, I dug a nice deep hole removing the clay/dirt that was previously occupying this space. I filled the holes in with a bit of potting soil, placed the rhizome horizontally on this new bed of dirt, then covered it up with about 1-2 inches more of potting soil. I then gave it a good soak to get things nice and moist (Don’t you just love that word?).
And that’s it. I expect to see some sprouts in a week or so, as long as I am able to keep it watered. It still boggles my mind that I simply put this little innocuous looking twig in the ground and have it potentially grow into a 25 foot long 20lb vine (sometimes growing up to a foot in length a day!). I’ll keep you updated on it’s progress. For now, enjoy the pics below…
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April 16th, 2009 at 7:08 am
I was expecting you to say that you woke up the next morning only to find a huge vine that grew right up into the clouds… watch out for the big giant up there if you decide to climb it. (I think I spend too much time with kids).
When you mentioned the word moist, it reminded me of the series, Dead Like Me. Have you seen that? It has been cancelled for a while now. Anyway, in the first episode they make fun of that word.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:47 am
I keep walking outside in the morning to check on it, hoping that indeed the vine is at least poking out of the soil. But so far, nothing yet. I’m holding out hope, that indeed there will be some growth by early next week.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I love planting things. Last year Mike and I planted eggplants and peppers in his living room. The excitement of watching them sprout up from the ground was thrilling.
April 19th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
At the beginning of this post I was thinking, “I sure hope he knows how big that thing will get”, but it appears that you do. Mom and Dad planted hops on the hillside UNDER the front porch and the things grew up and over the porch, so that is a 30 ft span. And you know, you grew up in hop country! I think Champoeg park was historically the hopyards of the NW. All sorts of native people used to pick hops back in the day before migrant workers from Mexico. The tribal old folks in Grand Ronde all talk about going to Salem/Keizer area to pick hops as children. So cool! I love to grow stuff!
April 24th, 2009 at 8:39 am
I was going to mention how you grew up in hop country too. I had a friend in college whose family had a hop farm in St. Paul (OR). She gave me a tour of her family’s farm when it was harvest time. It was very interesting to see the whole process. She even showed me how they dried and prepared the hops, getting them ready to ship off to the beer people. It is cool to get a picture of what really happens behind those massive fields of hop vines that you see on the side of the road in the Willamette Valley.
April 26th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Yeah, most of the places you can order hops from are in Oregon or Washington. In fact, many of the hop varieties are named after Oregon landmarks. For examples there are Willamette, Mt. Hood, and Cascade hops varieties that were all created right their in Oregon. I was trying to see if I could get dad to convert some of his “back 40″ into hop growing. He could actually make a killing selling fresh organic hops. That stuff is expensive. Heck, he might even get some tax breaks by running a “farm”.