Year three is supposed to be the year for any hop plant that you grow at home, if you believe the literature that they send to you along with the rhizomes.

Somebody must have sold my Cascade plant a different path because this year, on its third anniversary of being planted in my yard, it has decided to not make an appearance.

DOA Cascade Hop Plant

The photo above shows the sad scene. Do you remember the good old days when I had a strong hop season and harvest? Two strings await the hop bines to start climbing them but there are no plants around to take the trip. It’s just a mound of dirt.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Let’s back up a bit. There is some information I am withholding that may shed some light on why the bines are not sprout up this year or for any year in the future.

Right after the snow melted away and the bare ground was exposed, I would check on the plant to see if there was any growth. One morning, I think in late February, I took a look at my little plot to find that something had dug into the earth and had exposed a good amount of the hops roots(?). I believe my friendly neighborhood skunk had dug in looking for grubs and tore up some of my about-to-sprout hop plant. I buried it back up as quickly as I could, hoping that the damage wasn’t too bad.

A few weeks later, a few shoots started to come up and I thought we were in the clear. I nurtured them as best I could but then they disappeared or more truthfully, they dried up and died.

So, I am at a loss. Have we seen the last of this Cascade hop plant?

I guess I will wait it out until the end of this season and dig it up for a new rhizome to plant next year. It’s a real shame.

I will definitely protect the plant from grub-hungry skunks next time.

All is not lost for my hop growing at home. My Magnum hop is still rocking but I still need to figure out a new trellis for it.