this year bake and i got it together to grow some hops. i picked up this starter kit from northwest hops which came with 5 cascade rhizomes and a length of hop-twine-for-vine-climbin'. bake ordered a couple cascade rhizomes from northern brewer, not sure if he's gotten his yet...we'll see how he plants his in the near future. i decided to start mine in containers (5gal home depot buckets) so i could move them around my yard and decide where they will grow best, plus in utah, we never know when we'll get some late season frost...this way i can bring them in if need be. so, here's what i did:

i started by drilling some drainage holes in the bottom of the buckets- hops like to be moist, but not soaked.

i used 1 bag of river pebbles (about $3.50/bag @home depot) to line the bottom of the buckets ($2.50/ea @home depot) to promote good drainage and weigh down the buckets a bit.

i used this kellogg garden soil (about $7/3cu.ft. @home depot) because it specifically stated that it promoted strong roots. it was mulchy enough, so the bags of mulch on the left there are going in the yard. i only used 1.25/2 of the bags i bought...it really goes a long way.

northwest actually sent me 6 rhizomes, but 2 were kinda small, so i potted those ones together.

i filled the buckets up to 2-3" below the bucket rim, planted the rhizome, and topped up with soil.

i gave the potted rhizomes a good watering, which helped compact the soil...they all drained nicely and stayed appropriately moist. i'm going to leave them here on the deck, where they get a good amount of sun, until they sprout.

so, total cost for rhizomes, buckets, rocks, soil came to about $52. hopefully, i'll get some strong vines started this year...they say you can actually get a small crop of cones the first year, but year 2-3 is where they start yielding anything significant. we might have a wet hopped ipa in the fall this year.

also this week, my friend roberta brought me back a cache of awesome beers from her vegas trip...thanks slacker!

[left to right] stone ruination ipa, stone sublimely self-righteous ale, lagunitas a little sumpin' sumpin', dogfishhead 90min ipa, lakefront fixed gear and bridge burner. nice.

-kris