Guerrilla Hop Gardening

[WishboneBrewery]

Thats a good idea.... My OS map of the local area will start to look like a treasure map!

The brewers version of Geocaching

[haz66]

Excellent idea. Lot's of places near me.

Where's do you get the seeds from?

I just collect them from the hops that i use

Not at all . . . but if you have hop farms nearby they are going to be pretty P!ssed off when all their carefully grown seedless hops suddenly start producing seeds . . .. I'm going to do something similar . . . but plant a few rhizome cuttings around and about.

There are no hop farms round these parts, otherwise i wouldn`t have done it.

[beers_great]

Great Idea! I live in a Chavy part of Liverpool thats known as a real ale desert.

I grew Golden Tassel in my garden this year and Im going to dig them up in Feb, split the roots, then plant them on the parks & roundabouts in the area.

My Plan is to slowly turn the area into a hop garden under the noses of the chav's

[Philipek]

Great, thanks a lot. I'd just got used to "i could use that for brewing" when walking around any shop, now I'm going to have to get used to "I could plant hops there" when walking around the city.

I was going to plant hops in my garden, but I don't know if I'll be living here in a couple of years. I'm thinking I could plant hops up by the railway in the east end of Toronto. People walk their dogs there but it isn't gardened and there are places that get lots of sun. I'll have to check it out again though, and I will be evaluating every plot of weedy ground next to a fence I see.

I suppose brewers could get together, do a bit of guerilla planing and have some kind of dispersed hop farm with a healthy selection of hope varieties.

[ADDLED]

One of the bigger houses in our street has hop plants growing up into a tree in their front garden. The moons too bright at the moment so i need to wait a few nights, lets hope they dont have motion sensored security lights.
Interestingly theres been some guerilla gardening in the council planters near the common; some lady planted different coloured chard and spinach, and they look really pretty at the moment. There must be about £50 worth of fresh green veg thats been sitting ripening for weeks, though im not surprised nobody has harvested them; its at dog-leg level and must get "watered" 50 times a day.

[Manx Guy]

cool...

What a great Idea... I live near a school that has an 18foot high wire fence to keep the kids associated missles inside the school grounds... Its in a fairly sheltered (from the manx wind) spot that is SSW facing so should be sunny enough...

I'm very tempted... If I were to plant some seeds (seen some on ebay) indoors now would they be rizomes/seedlings in time for spring planting out?
I know that the natural plants are dying back round about now...

Even if the hops they produce aren't suitable for brewing It would look awesome and act as a great screen...

if there are any cones produced then I can sneakly hack the lot down drag it to my garden and then harvest the cones...

[Subsonic]

I am actually a member of 'guerilla gardening' and am planning on planting a whole load of hops in town next spring. They are a right pig to get rid of which is even better . Another guerilla friend is doing artichokes. My hops will just be grown from my seeds which did ok this year until my daughter watered them with a jet washer Hopefully next spring I can avoid that and plant some more. I just used seeds from fuggles that were frozen for a while over Christmas. Germination was pretty good.... Subsonic

[Philipek]

They are a right pig to get rid of which is even better .

I was thinking about that. Are hops tough? Can you plant them and leave them to the rain and sun? They won't be trampled by dogs or racoons? I seem to remember reading somewhere that they like to be out in the sun, but that's all I really know about hop cultivation.

[Subsonic]

Hops are tough. There is a plant near me in tha car park of a temple. Each year it breaks out through the concrete by the gate post and climbs everywhere. It gets cut down and hacked and chopped but each year its back again....

[lancsSteve]

Hmm - guerilla gardening with seeds of a plant where:

". the issue is that you get male and female plants (Hops being dioecious) . . . only female plants produce cones . . . and if they are fertilised they produce seeds . .. you get better lupulin production from unfertilised plants . . . and weight for weight more lupulin from unseeded compared to seeded. . . ."

I'd be keeping an eye out for Mr Plod who may not be so good at differentiating one plant (legal) from it's closest relative (illegal) which shares identical traits as above, and is also a popular 'guerilla grow'. Really would suck to get arrested and held in a cell while the cops swot up on horticulture