Hops Seeds from Alchemy Works - Seeds for Magick Plants and Pagan Gardens

Hops engraving Humulus lupulus
Hops
A Sun/Jupiter herb, hops is famous as a beer ingredient. Unlike other herbs previously used to preserve beer - yarrow, sweet gale, and marsh rosemary - hops causes sedation and damps the sex drive, providing a brew that Protestantism could love. The lupulus in its name comes from Pliny, who believed that the thorny vines embraced a support like a wolf (lupus) embraces a sheep. Romans ate young shoots of this herb, and its extracts have been used to treat leprosy, tuberculosis, and dysentery. This herb is alleged to be antimicrobial and sedative, and small pillows filled with the flowers are still used for insomnia, although certain folks are allergic to the pollen and depressed people are cautioned not to use it at all. Read Purdue University's Center for New Crops on this plant. Top

How to grow hops: Growing this plant from seed involves more patience than growing from rhizomes but gives much more genetic variety and will result in plants suited to your climate and soil. This in turn will make your brew more locale specific. The seeds can be very tough to germinate. Soak seeds for 24 hours, then sow in a little moist vermiculite or sphagnum peat moss, put in a baggie, and keep in the coldest part of your fridge (below 41F/5C) for 6 weeks. Take out and sow at room temperature. Seeds should germinate over 4 weeks, but this seed can be slow. This is a good seed to try soaking with (as with belladonna). Or use Outdoor Treatment. This is a perennial vine that grows throughout all but the southernmost parts of the US. It likes full sun and warmth. Once they get 1 foot high, you should start supporting the vines' growth. Hops must get 10-13 ft long before it will put out cones, and then only on female plants will do so, so make sure you have several plants. The cones will be larger if male plants are around. Composted cow manure works great on hops. Once the plant is established, you can make new plants from the rhizomes or from serpentine layering (lay a vine along the ground and cover bits of it with earth--don't cut the vine from the mother plant until the bits have formed roots). Harvest papery cones in September when weather is dry and dry immediately in 120F oven or in the sun. Hops grows well in the Pacific Northwest, although it tends to get mildew and mold problems in wet areas. General growing info Top

This is the species. It is not a named variety or a clone and provides both male and female plants..

Uses in Witchcraft & Magick:

Sun/Jupiter Herb