Saturday, July 25, 2009 at 5:45PM The cascade hop cones are coming in quick; I guess I better read up on how to know when they are ready to be harvested!
Vertical growth has definitely slowed down (probably because I let too much of the bines grow), but I've started getting multiple groups of cones forming. While I don't expect a significant yield, it is good to know they seem to like the soil and should be ready to grow again next year!
Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at 6:41PM Dad asked to see how the hops were growing, so I went and took this photo before it started to rain. As you can see, this Cascade hop bine is about six feet tall. There are quite a few shorter ones already growing up the twine as well. The Mt. Hood hops aren't doing as well; however, one bine is about two inches from the top of its support cage.
This will likely be my last post before we leave tomorrow evening to start our journey to North Carolina. We'll be staying at my parent's house tomorrow night so we can get up Friday and get on the road to Richmond. I'm pushing to have dinner at the Capital Ale House as it is only 500ft. from the hotel (and has 77 different beers on tap!).
I'm not sure if I'll be able to post any updates here, but keep an eye on my flickr photostream as I'll try and upload some pictures from my iPhone throughout the week!
Hops, Outer Banks, Vacation in Brewing, Personal Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 7:29PM 
IMG_3259, originally uploaded by nateut.
Early last week, I spoke with my dad about how quickly my hop vines were out-growing the cages we used to support the initial growth and that I needed to find a more permanent solution soon. Always up for a challenge, he went searching the web and found some plans calling for a 20-foot tripod structure made out of 3/4" metal conduit. He modified the plans slightly (four legs instead of three and only 15-foot tall), and agreed to come up to Whitehouse on Sunday to get it into place.
Besides the heat, the building process went pretty smoothly and only took two trips to Menards to complete. Each of the two hop varieties (Cascade and Mt. Hood) have four lengths of twine to grow up. Since they had already wrapped themselves around the cages, we left them in place, but in the subsequent years we'll simply run the twine all the way to the ground to support the vine growth.
One of the cascade vines has already started to wrap around the twine; there was another already over the top of the cage, but it was damaged in the construction and may not grow further. However, there are two more vines within an inch of the top, and another one or two just a little bit lower. The Mt. Hood hops are a little behind in growth (even though they sprouted first), but a few vines seem to be slowly making their way up.
Big thanks to my dad for helping today! A few more photos are available on my flickr photostream.
Monday, June 15, 2009 at 8:32PM Nearly six weeks after planting, the Cascade hops have really started to grow. The tallest vine is about 26" tall, and has grown approximately 2" in the past 24 hours. It has about another 4" or so until it reaches the top of the cage... I'm going to need to come up with some way of supporting its continued growth pretty quick.
Another photo of the Cascade hop plant can be found here.
Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 9:41PM A Mount Hood hop sprout pokes through the dirt... not even two weeks since it was planted!
Sorry the quality is so bad; we were getting ready to head to the Granite City Food & Brewery at Fallen Timbers for dinner and drinks and I didn't have time to get my 40D out of the house. I'll post some more pics next week, hopefully after the Cascade hops emerge!
(Taken with an Apple iPhone.)
Nate Thompson
Here's a better picture of the baby Mt. Hood hop plant, taken this morning with my Canon 40D. It has doubled in size and is starting to develop a few tiny leaves. Still nothing from the Cascade rhizomes, but I have a feeling we'll see something in the next week or so!
