Cascade Hops Vine Full of Fruit - September 2023
I planted a 1# Cascade Hops Vine in early Summer 2021 that I bought at The Growing Place (Aurora Location). At that time, the plant was pretty mature; based on the bulging, root-bound container. So, it wasn't a surprise that I saw hops (fruits) that first season. Then, in year two (2022), I was surprised to see that the very same vine that fruited so easily produce no hops in the following year. Here's the vine a year ago - with no hops on it anywhere.
This year, we're back in the hops-producing mode as the vine has some larger, mature hops and some tiny, small ones. Before I show the hops, let's talk about the vine. I created a wire (attached to the fence) trellis a few years back, but I believe that hops vines want to REALLY CLIMB. This goes to six-feet-tall and appears to have been cut-back at the top. My hunch is that I didn't manage the vine enough and it started to climb over the fence and the neighbor trimmed it back. The vine is also climbing OUTWARD - out the front...towards the lawn - that you can see in the photo below:
There are clusters of Cascade hops tucked in/around the vine - see below for one of those clusters:
The large ones are quite lovely - I picked one and am going to try to dry it on my desk at home to see what it does off-the-vine:
One of the things that I should start to think about for next year is upgrading this trellis - using a 'climbing string/wire' design. Something like this that gets that vine to climb up and up - which I found while wandering around a new (to me) subreddit: r/TheHopYard/.
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