It's a Jungle Out There

When we left on vacation last Thursday, a couple of bines of the Cascade were just starting to climb the twine and the Nugget was just getting going out of the ground (see photo in previous post). Well, the past five days were apparently fantastic growing weather. I checked the hops plants this morning when I left for work and this is what I found:

Quite the tangled mess. I had a feeling that's what it would look like when I got back with no one around to train the bines onto the twine. One of the bines from the Cascade plant had crossed over and started growing up the twine on the Nugget pot. Bines are braided together as they climbed each other and others are wrapped around the support pole. Quite a lot of growth for only five days. I'll have a bit of work to do this afternoon to untangle the mess and figure out which bines to keep and get them wrapped around the twine. The rest of the bines will be cut off so the plant can concentrate on growing the main bines. I'll probably keep four to six bines per plant (two to three per twine) and cut back the rest.