Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

Judging by the underwhelming response, I hope that everyone ordered a whole mess o' hops directly to their houses! 
I ended up ordering a Nugget for clean high-alpha bittering without having to use too many hops, some Willamette-an American Fuggle, and an East Kent Golding. I'll have eleven plants growing in my "hop line" and most definitely have the sore back to prove it. Stretching ergonomics be damned. Bring on the Aleve and lots of numbing brew. Whoops. The bottle says to avoid alcohol with the medication. I choose to avoid the Aleve.

Eveything from last year is coming up nicely.  I had a Galena root system die last year and I am replacing it with another Jumbo Cascade.  Waiting on it to arrive in the mail.  It is amazing how strong they come up the next year. Now I need to get the deer fence up around them before the deer have them for breakfast.

I got a call on Friday that The Thyme Garden doesn't have any more Pride of Ringwood hops. I placed my order at the beginning of the month so this came as a surprise to me.  I'm bummed.  I ordered three rhizomes in all (the others were Fuggles and Sunbeam Golden) but the POR were the ones that I was really counting on. Thyme Garden were the only US distributor of POR rhizomes that I could find. They are substituting Chinook instead, but they are VERY different.

My hops are just now breaking the ground.  Their little, purple asparagus heads are just popping through, so it is time to put up the trellis and mulch.

Hoefully my new hops will be here soon.

I will check mine tonight, as I have not looked in about a week.  Hoping for the best, though if they don't come up in a week, I am ordering replacement plants for sure (if they can still be found).

mine have also broke ground but i am still waiting on the hops i ordered in the mail

Cascade is already 1/2 foot tall!  I heard it is best to cut the early shoots.  But in the past when I did that I got 2 shoots per cut.  If I did that right now I would have 80 shoots growing!  Any word on that?

-M.

Doc -

Yeah, that is how it happens.  Trimming back the shoots makes you feel like Hercules fighting the Hydra, but it just takes a routine to keep trimming them back.

And, after all is all well established, trimming back some of the leaves from the first few feet helps, too.

Jamey