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Every spring a hop plant regrows twenty feet (6 m) of stem and a full canopy of leaves from nothing. That is a huge demand in a short window, and it is concentrated between the shoots emerging and the bines reaching the top wire. Nitrogen matters most during that stretch and matters very little afterwards.
Work a balanced granular feed into the soil around each crown in early spring as the shoots come through, and follow with a second application about six weeks later while the bines are still climbing. Once the bines have reached full height and are branching into side arms, stop feeding nitrogen entirely. Late nitrogen keeps the plant making leaves when it should be making cones, produces soft growth that mildew loves, and delays the hardening off that the crown needs before winter.
Potassium is the useful late nutrient. A potassium-rich feed as the burrs form supports cone development and helps the crown store reserves for next spring. An annual mulch of well-rotted compost or manure spread over the root area after the bines are cut down in autumn does most of the long-term soil work on its own.
| Stage | Feed | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Shoots emerging in early spring | Balanced granular fertilizer | Spread over a 24 in (60 cm) circle, not at the stem |
| Bines climbing, six weeks later | Second balanced application, or liquid feed fortnightly | Last nitrogen of the year |
| Bines at full height, burrs forming | Potassium-rich feed | No further nitrogen |
| Cones filling | Nothing | Let the plant finish on what it has |
| After cutting down in autumn | Compost or rotted manure mulch | Keep it an inch or two clear of the crown |
Water deep and wide, not little and often
A mature hop moves a remarkable amount of water on a hot day, and its roots run several feet down and well out from the crown. Watering that only wets the top inch of soil trains the roots to stay shallow and leaves the plant helpless in a dry spell. Water thoroughly and less often instead: a long slow soak that reaches down at least a foot (30 cm), repeated when the soil is dry two to three inches (5 to 8 cm) down.
In practice an established plant in decent soil needs a soak roughly weekly in warm dry weather and nothing at all in a wet spell. First and second year plants need more attention because their roots are still shallow. Plants in large containers, which is the only sensible way to grow hops in a pot, need checking daily in summer and will still crop less than a plant in the ground.
The critical stretch is from burr formation through cone filling. Drought then gives you small, light, papery cones that never fill out. Once the cones are close to ready, ease back slightly; soaking wet conditions during ripening encourage rot inside the cone, which you will not see from outside.
Water at the base and keep it off the leaves. Wet foliage overnight is the main opening for downy mildew. Drip line or a slow hose at ground level beats a sprinkler by a wide margin here.
Mulch is worth more than extra watering. Two to three inches (5 to 8 cm) of compost or straw over the root area holds moisture, suppresses weeds and feeds the soil, as long as you keep it clear of the crown itself.
Keep the canopy thin all summer
Most hop problems at home come from too much growth in too small a space. Air has to move through the plant and light has to reach the side arms; both are things you create by taking growth away rather than by adding anything. Make a habit of a quick tidy every two or three weeks through early and midsummer.
- Cut new ground shoots as they appear The crown keeps pushing fresh shoots long after you have trained your chosen bines. Cut them off at soil level whenever you see them. Each one you leave takes energy that should be going into cones and adds to the tangle at the base.
- Keep the bottom three feet bare Re-strip any leaves and side shoots that appear on the lowest three to four feet (90 to 120 cm) of the trained bines. This is the single most effective mildew measure available to a home grower, and it takes two minutes per plant.
- Untangle bines that have merged Where two bines have wound around each other, separate them while the growth is still soft. Tangled bines shade each other, hold damp, and become impossible to pull down separately at harvest.
- Remove any leaf that looks wrong Pull off and bin, rather than compost, leaves with white powdery patches, yellow angular blotches or heavy aphid colonies. Removing the first few affected leaves early is worth far more than spraying a heavily infected plant later.
- Keep the ground around the crown clear Weeds and long grass at the base hold humidity and shelter pests. Keep a clean circle two feet (60 cm) across around each crown, mulched rather than dug, since digging near the crown damages the surface roots and rhizomes.
The autumn cut and what to write down
After harvest the bines yellow and die back. Once the leaves have gone, cut the bines down to about a foot (30 cm) above the ground and take the whole tangle off the strings, or cut the strings and compost them together. Leave that short stub over winter as a marker and cut it flush the following spring before the new shoots come. Clear away fallen leaves rather than leaving them at the base; mildew overwinters in that debris.
The crown is fully hardy in most temperate gardens and needs no protection beyond a mulch in a hard-winter climate. It simply sits dormant underground and comes back stronger each year for the first three or four years.
Records earn their keep with hops because the plant looks the same every year and your memory does not. Note the date the shoots first appeared, the date you trained the bines, when you saw the first burrs, the day you picked and how much you got, and any date you first saw aphids or mildew. After two seasons those dates let you act a week ahead of a problem instead of a week behind it, and they show you plainly whether a crown is still improving or has started to decline and wants dividing.