Continued growth and end to the drought

Good growth rate has continued on both the Nugget and Cascade. The hot weather is slowly starting to creep in and the temperatures have hit the high 80's a couple of days. However, we've also been getting some pretty heavy rain storms every 5 ~ 7 days which has helped with the drought conditions we've been suffering with since the beginning of the year.

I've got the second Nugget bine now starting to climb the hop twine on the right side of the pot. A third shoot has just started peaking out above the ground as well.

There are now three healthy Cascade bines that I should be able to start training to grow up the twine in another week or so.

The first Nugget bine has started to wind its way up the hop twine. The second shoot is doing nicely as well and I should be able to get that one climbing in a week or so.

There are now four Cascade above ground and doing well. The growth rate really increases once they get some leaves on them.

Cascade has risen!

Its seemed an appropriate day, Easter Sunday, for the Cascade to finally rise from the ground. While checking the moisture level of the soil, I noticed a couple of little shoots finally peaking up from the mulch. I had started to get a little worried that maybe the Cascade rhizome was DOA or the conditions hadn't been appropriate for it. Fortunately, I was just impatient with it. Now comes the task of keep both of them alive and growing.

The Nugget has continued to thrive and is now 15" tall. A couple of more shoots are just starting to make their way up above the layer of mulch.

Mulch and Drip Irrigation

The sprouts from the Nugget rhizome continue to do well, while the Cascade has yet to break ground. Since its starting to get pretty warm during the afternoon, I put an inch or two of mulch across the top of both pots. This should help to keep moisture in the soil as well as prevent weeds from growing. I also hooked up the drip irrigation to each pot. It's currently schedule to come on around 9:30am and run for about 20 minutes. I'll monitor the soil moisture level and adjust the schedule and length as necessary.

Nugget on a growth spurt, but no cascade.

I'm getting worried about the cascade as there's still no shoots. The nugget, however, now has four shoots above the ground with the main one a few inches tall.

We have nugget lift-off!

I wandered past the hop pots at lunch to see how things were doing after the heavy rain this morning and low and behold... there's a two inch shoot coming from the nugget hop!!

Nothing from the cascade pot yet, but that rhizome was a lot smaller and didn't have as many shoots already growing from it. It was quite exciting though, to see something already growing up from the ground less then a week after planting.

Moisture Control

From what I've read, hops appear to be sensitive to the right amount of moisture in the soil. They need a lot of water, but the soil should dry out between waterings to avoid root rot.

To help determine a proper watering schedule, I purchased an inexpensive Soil Moisture Meter (use link on right to purchase from Amazon). So far, it seems to work pretty well.

I should have the drip irrigation system setup this weekend to automate the watering (use link on right to purchase from Amazon). I used it last year to keep the plants and flowers watered on the back patio and it worked great. No more dead plants after going away for the weekend or having to ask the neighbors to water the plants when we went on vacation. It should work great for the hop pots.