Hop Trellis
A couple months ago, Drew walked into my office to announce he was growing hops. Which is a good thing, as we when he usually makes unannounced proclamations, I'm always a little worried where he is headed.
Drew's motivation appeared to be less of a "sustainable hop usage" approach and more of a "I have a huge pergola in backyard I'm going to fill with hops" kind of thing. Either way, I was intrigued.
Following Drew's lead, I immediately checked out Freshops and made my own order. Although I don't have a huge beautiful pergola in the backyard, I do know a great idea when I see it and better yet, I know how to get to The Home Depot.
I ordered four hop rhizomes, or root stems: 2 Fuggle, 1 Chinook and 1 Golding. For reasons that are pretty obvious, I went all English.
As soon as the rhizomes arrived, I planted them in pots. Seeing it was early April, I wanted to make sure I was past the last frost before planting them in the ground. I also needed to build my trellis.
I would like to thank my friend, Devicenak, on Flickr. His own hop trellis , with several successful years of harvesting, gave me the inspiration for mine.
Hops, like our federal deficit, can really grow. Drew is lucky enough to run his hops horizontally across his pergola. I don't have the same option, so I followed Devicenak's vertical trellis idea.
Using a 16 foot 4x4, I dado'd a 6 foot 4x4 about 1 foot from the top. I attached 4 eyelets to the underside of the horizontal cross bar and since the dado provided plenty of strength, I was able to forgo any additional supports.
Hops require a lot of sun. Although there are plenty of places in the backyard which meet this requirement, there are only a few which would allow me to erect a wooden monument and not get a complaint. I finally opted on a spot behind the garage, which outside of the visibility of low flying airplanes, is mostly out of view.
In turns out site placement was only part of my problem. While digging the hole for the post, I discovered where all of the fill from a previous driveway/septic tank project ended up...under my hop garden. After some steady shoveling intertwined with underground pick axe asphalt removal, I had a hole, which, unless tragedy strikes and anyone asks, is plenty deep to support this tall structure.
Freshops recommended 2 runs of coir yarn per hop plant, which, like Jenn from Not Exactly Bento pointed out, made my trellis look like I was running electrical lines to the garage.
With some help from Zoe, I hoisted the monstrosity into the air and suddenly realized just how visible this thing was from the front yard. At this point it is a toss up as to what exactly the neighbors think.
Although it may be tall, I am thrilled with it. I edged the area with a plastic border, mulched and then transplanted the hops, which had already started to grow like wildfire.
Typically, the hops will not flower till their second year, so although I have laid the groundwork now, the effort will not pay off till much later. Nonetheless, i will be excited to watch their vertical progress and look forward to smelling their wonderful oils. My first batch of homebrew from my hop garden will not only be memorable, but thanks to my new trellis and inspiration from others, a little cheaper too.
