#hops uk

Second photo shows before repotting, so you can see the size difference of the pot!

First Gold is the first up this year. After having hardly a single cone last year hopefully it'll perform better for 2022. Lets hope for a decent spring.

1. Wild hop cuttings from Cawood Marshes and Cawood Hedgerow have rooted well and now putting on some growth. Very pleased to have got these wild ones going.2. Bramling Cross is doing better in its pot this year with a good dosing of well rotted chicken manure and little Ernest is making his first go towards the sky, my latest hop addition.3. Despite having a load of tips nipped off by pigeons my 9 year old Fuggle is going crazy as usual. Plenty of new bines to choose from and putting loads of growth on each day.4. First Gold has already reached the roof on the shed at one side and last years cuttings are doing well there as too. It's going to be a hoppy year!

So my heritage hop Ernest is now in the ground! I did my best to find a space to locate my new hop rhizome, got about 4m there up the back of the shed so I've a few years to go before that becomes too much of an issue. Hopefully it will be fine and it’ll just clamber all over the shed roof and be easy enough to cut down for harvest, but we’ll worry about that when the time comes, lol. I’ll get some strings on in spring once I see some growth.

Lots of people tend to cut the bines right back during harvesting but I like to leave as many leaves on as possible to feed the rhizomes with those last bits of sun before they go dormant.I'll probably cut them back once all the Spiders and bugs have moved out. 🕸️

Not a very large crop this year for these two hedgerow hop plants but I've got another two cuttings growing to bolster that up over the next few years and there'll certainly be enough for a few brews. 

Another reason to love working from home, harvested another big loads of Fuggles at lunch time last week and then finished picking them after work. Air dried for about 4 days this time and once vac packed up I had about 300g. There’s still quite a few on the plant but I need to get on to harvesting the First Gold and Bramling Cross very soon too so might not get round to the rest of the Fuggles. Got plenty to be going on with anyway, lol.

Decided to expand the First Gold after trying to root some cuttings, worked a treat and I now have another 2 little hop plants to grow up the shed next to the established other two.