A question for Hop Growers

[carbon]

Hello all,
I grew hops for the first time this past year. I had a pretty decent harvest of Nuggett and Cascade. I planted these in large containers so that I can take them with me when I move from my rental house. My question is, what care, if any, should I be giving the rhizomes during the winter? I have them planted in large storage containers with lids. I harvested the hops months ago and let the vines dry up and turn brown for a month or so. Then I cut back all the dead stuff. Then I actually put the lids back on the containers. Now I'm starting to wonder if the rhizomes are going to dry out too much. Should I continue to water them occasionally through the off season? Should I just leave the lids off and let nature take its course? Or will they survive fine as they are? Any advice from experienced hop growers is much appreciated.

[dhempy]

Welcome back to BC Carbon! Haven't seen you post here in a while.

I've grown hops for 2 years now ... only really had success with my cascades. Mine are in the ground and after harvest I pretty much ignore them until spring when I go out and restring my trellis. I don't change the watering ... I pretty much leave them alone.

You might check out the Grow Hops Yahoo group at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Grow-Hops/

Bill Velek is pretty good about answering most questions and I'd post the same question there.

Good luck. Hope to see you here more often!

Dan

[backyard brewer]

That's a tough question. If the containers are well drained, I'd leave them out and let nature take its course. My fear would be drowning them and rotting them if they aren't drained well. The problem with not leaving them out is you'll have no way of knowing what and when the plant wants to bud and if the cover inhibits that, you might throw the plant off.

Just thoughts. When I grew mine they were in the ground and I let them do what they wanted.