The Hops have Surfaced

It's always exciting to see your hard work pay off. After only planting my hops three weeks ago, 2 of the 4 hop trees have surfaced -the Cascade and the Zeus. It doesn't surprise me that the Cascade has made the quickest progress. Everything I read says that the Cascade has high yield in this Southern California climate. It also gets the most sun out of the four I planted. It also surprises me that the Zeus is off to such a great start because it has the least amount of sun our of the four I planted.

As for the Centennial and Willamette, it looks like I planted them a little too deep. I dug both of them up to see if I could find any shoots. Sure enough, the Centennial was trying to surface, and the Willamette was planted way too deep. It still looks good, just not getting enough heat/sun, so I just cut the hill I had in about half. Hopefully we'll see some surfacing here in the next month.

As far as watering goes, we've been getting rain about once or twice a week lately so I've only watered maybe four times over the last three weeks. As it gets hotter, I will have to tend to them much more often. I plan on getting a drip system eventually which will save me time, water, and money! Be sure to not water directly on the plant because the sun can burn the leaves.

Next thing I will do is buy some stakes and guy line to start training my hops up the trellis. I'm hoping by fall that I can have some healthy hop plants that I can maybe pick off for the year to dry and use in some brew. However, most of my expectations lay in next year when the hops will be in their second year and should produce enough to brew some 5 gallon batches. Also, check out our peach tree -it's starting to bloom as well. I'm thinking a Peach Pale Ale would be pretty tasty come summer time!
~Cheers