Now that the threat of last frost (or just temperatures into the high 30s at night) is finally over, I thought I’d expound a bit about what’s new in my garden(s) this year, and why. This year we’re trying our hand at hops, a rather booming local contender for Number One Cash Crop now that the city [Asheville] in the next county over has been officially named “Beer Capital Of America” for its numerous tasty specialty brews and boasting three new big breweries in addition to the several that were previously located in these mountains to take advantage of our uniquely pure and tasty water.
The first thing I found out about hops when I decided to try my green thumb on them is that they’re native to northern Europe, growing best north of the parallel barely skimming the most northern region of the lower 48 – Germany, after all, is as north as Maine. Since this is North Carolina – don’t let the “north” fool you, we’re well south of the Mason-Dixon line – and while elevation does help a bit when considering latitude particulars, we’re far south of “optimum” growing zone. So we’re starting small – ordered three roots from an herbal supply company, and bought three 5-gallon buckets to grow them in. Sited them in the front bulb area next to the cabin just off the front deck where the vines will get plenty of sun but the soil will be kept cool by being in the shadow of lilies and low shrubs. If they do well this season we’ll plow a strip behind the shed in the space between it and the forest line, where it can be trellised up the high side wall and grown thickly as an actual crop.
Which, let me just say, is readily marketable around here even if we weren’t also planning to try our hands at home brewing beer. Visited a brand new micro-brewery just last week where I mentioned my new crop, the owner told me right then and there he’d buy all I can produce. Is it any real surprise, then, that hops just happen to be a variety of cannabis?
Oh, yes. They very much are.
Humulus Lupulus: Hops are the fruiting bodies or strobiles of a member of the cannabis family native to Europe, Asia, and North America. Hops are widely grown in the Pacific Northwest, primarily for flavoring beer.
Now, herbally speaking, hops are soothing to the stomach, can be used as an appetite stimulant as a ‘bitter’, and is a slightly sedative sleep aid. They used to make hops pillows to cure insomnia. But I’m going for beer here, considering how NOT successful my attempts to make wine have been.
In reading up on hops cultivation I’ve discovered that while certainly an energetic grower (up to a foot a day), this vine comes in well behind kudzu in the “Swallow Cows Whole” Sweepstakes. I figure that if I’ve been able to live with kudzu literally surrounding my precious acreage for 20 years and still haven’t been swallowed, hops won’t be much of a challenge.
The details for growing hops are easily found on the internet with a simple search. The photos are impressive, but often look like a backbreaking intensive of managing the vines vertically that I’d need far more field hands to pull off than I actually have to work with, given both of my field hands are attached to my very own arms. Stringing twine from the eave to stakes in the ground I can do. Once a year. Anything more than that is way more effort than I’m willing to extend.
I also realize that my first year experiment of growing in containers isn’t going to give me a very good idea of exactly what kind of bounty I can expect to harvest from in-ground rhizomes. But I will learn about cultivation needs, amount of sun and shade necessary, etc.
The sites I’ve studied say the vines will stop growing by mid-july – when they’re in full bloom – but that kind of general information doesn’t necessarily apply to the exact isoclime we’ve got here on this particular homestead. So far, with actual above-60º nights less than two weeks along and still getting at least an inch of rain a day, I’m figuring they’ll keep going until mid-August. The vines are only a few feet along the string to the eave of the loft, they should end up there or very nearly there before calling it quits. At any rate, if they do well I should get a pound per vine at harvest, and twice or more than that from in-ground vines next year.
Like kudzu, I can see that these pretty vines are something I could come to appreciate very much, even just as green shading on the dark brown exterior siding during the hottest part of the summer. I’ll be reporting in fairly regularly on their progress through this experimental season and beyond, as well as reporting on the details of home brewing beer. That will include getting hold of some bushels of organic barley from one of my valley neighbors (probably from my wheat supplier), learning how to “malt” the grain and dry it properly, etc., etc. Should be fun!
