Chinook Rhizome Re-Sprouting Hop Vines

As you can see, my hop plant has re-emerged, and with it my hopes to one day brew with homegrown hops. Earlier this year spider mites attacked and devastated my lone hop plant (of the Chinook variety). You can see the carnage on top of the soil where the new shoots are sprouting. Everything was going fine, the plant was growing extremely fast, I already trellised it up and across the window (it was probably a good 15-20ft long if I unravelled it), and then one day the bottom leaves started to turn brown.Before Mite Hop Plant

Pretty soon more leaves were turning brown. One by one, all the way up the twine trellis, each leaf was slowly decimated. I could see the little bugs under the leaves, but no matter how many times I sprayed them with soapy water or smushed them between my fingers I couldn’t defeat them. Then one week they must have multiplied because in a flash all of the growth was brown and leaves were sent raining onto the sill below. 

So, in denial, I forgot about it. It’s summertime and summertime is not brewing time. Too hot for brewing in the apartment and too