Hops (humulus lupus)

 
There are hundreds of varieties of hops, most of them bred for beer-making. Most are, however, too vigorous and sprawling for the average perennial food garden, often growing to four or five metres in every direction. The variety we grow is a relatively well-behaved variety called ‘Golden tassles’.
 
This is a ‘dwarf’ variety with beautiful golden foliage. It will grow to around 2.5 metres and it will produce an abundance of hops in autumn which can be used for making tea or brewing beer. The new growth in spring is tender and the shoots can be cut and eaten. This is quite a bushy variety so there are always plenty of shoots to eat and still leave enough to form the summer’s growth.
 
The leaf colour is best when grown in full sun, but we find our plants produce just as many hops in semi-shade and they don’t dry out so quickly on the plant when the weather is really hot (which admittedly is not very often here in the west of Scotland). Plants are propagated by root or stem cuttings and we have had good results taking a shoot and growing it horizontally, pegging it down firmly into a pot of compost at each node as they grow(strip the leaves off). By the end of the season, you’ll have pegged nodes in ten to fifteen pots and if you are lucky about two-thirds of them will have sent out roots. Plants can be grown in the ground or in large pots.