Hops are not only cultivated on a large scale for beer production. The ornamental and medicinal plant is also a real eye-catcher in the garden. You can also harvest the fruits and make your own beer or soothing drinks. Young shoots are even edible. What you need to know if you want to grow hops yourself.

Hops need a climbing aid

Grow hops in the garden or on the balcony

Hops are an ideal ornamental plant for sunny and shady locations. The fast-growing climbing plant greens balconies and forms a good privacy screen in the garden during the gardening season.

To plant hops, you need enough space and a trellis. The plants grow up to seven meters high and the roots also spread rapidly. You should not plant hops too close to neighboring properties to avoid trouble.

On the other hand, hops can also be grown on house walls because, unlike ivy, the climbing plant does not leave any permanent traces on the masonry.

The right place for hops

Hops prefer a sunny or semi-shady place. You can also easily grow the plant on a north wall or grow it in a tub on a north-facing balcony. However, the prerequisite is that the place is bright. If you want to harvest fruit, the location should be as sunny as possible.

  • Sunny to shady location
  • trellis
  • nutritious, nitrogenous soil
  • Substrate slightly moist
  • Soil must not dry out
  • Absolutely avoid waterlogging

Grow female or male plants?

In the trade you only get female plants. If you want to grow hops yourself from seeds you have harvested yourself, you will only find out which sex the plant has when it flowers.

If you want to grow the hops for brewing beer or to obtain the healing fruits yourself, you need female plants. Lupulline, the most important ingredient in hops for beer, matures only in these.

In areas where hops are grown for beer brewing, growing male plants is prohibited. It is therefore better to buy hops to grow yourself from a specialist nursery.

Grow hops yourself

Hops can be grown from seeds, but you don't know if they will produce male or female plants. For this reason, hops should only be propagated vegetatively, i.e. via cuttings.

When are hops ready for harvest?

The hop cone is ready for harvest when the yellow lupulline has formed inside. This is usually the case in August or September. Unfortunately, it is not possible to see from the outside whether a hop cone is ripe. Unfortunately, all that remains is to open a cone and have a look.

Overwinter hops properly

Hops are hardy. The plant withers itself over the winter and sprout again in the spring. Cut the hops down to 50 to 70 centimeters before winter. Shorten the old shoots completely in the spring before they sprout.

tips

Hop tendrils wind clockwise around trellises. You have to help with that. Make sure that you only wrap the tendrils around the sticks to the right, otherwise growth will be slowed down.

Category:

Vegetable garden