Lions, tigers, and spiders oh my!
Last week was my hop harvest, which I’ll get into in my next post, but what surprised me this year was the vast number of spiders I found as I was cutting my hops down. It was way more then I’ve seen/noticed in past years. This year I count 9 distinctly different spiders on my plants, big gnarly ones(click on the photo to the right to see it in all its glory), albino looking ones, tiny ones, and a bunch in between. Beside the creep factor of these arachnids, are they good or bad for your hop plants?
That answer I don’t know, but I would gander these bugs are probably pretty good for the plants since spiders don’t eat plants they eat other insects. What I didn’t see on the plants were aphids, spider mites, and other typical hop pests; although I did dump thousands of ladybugs over the summer since I had pests half way though the growing season.
I figure the spiders aren’t hurting me, they don’t appear to be hurting the plants, so live and let live. Unless… they were there to snack on the ladybugs….
What do you think about spiders and hops?
I’m very, very new to home brewing. No where near growing my own hops but do you have any tips and/or resources on growing and/or choosing good hops for brewing? How much area do you need to grow them?
In regards to the spiders, I’d have to agree. As long as they aren’t overrunning the area I don’t think they are doing much damage.