Thoughts on this hop trellis design

Hey everyone. First time hop grower here. I have 3 plants that are about 6 feet apart. in between i put some peppers and beans and such. my hops have been in the ground for 2-3 weeks and they are coming out of the ground already so im probably going to build a trellis soon. I dont want to go 15 to 20 feet vertical so below i what i came up with.

And just so you know what your looking at I have a walk out basement that i plan on growing over. looking at the house on the left hand side there is a space that is maybe 2 feet between the walk out and the house. on the right i have my hops planted, that side is not bound by my house it goes to the yard

Dimensions:
Poles from hops ~3 feet
Height of poles ~4feet
Height of second poles ~10feet
Horizontal distance between poles ~12 feet


Total hope growing length is roughly 18.5 feet.



My Questions:

is the design viable? ive heard of issues with hops growing horizontally

Best materials to use? i was thinking pvc or black pipe. metal fence post if i can find it?


Also the reason im not going vertical is i have a bit of a wind problem. Can get pretty bad during storms. I live right on a river so im trying to keep it as not vertical as possible.


thanks in advance for any advice

Pretty cool looking design. Should look very nice when they fill in toward the end of summer.

I don't think you'll have an issue with them growing since your lines run upward at an angle. They need to be trained to go directly horizontal, but angles are fine. One thing I would suggest is planting your hops at the base of the poles, instead of 3 feet away. It may put more stress on the vines if they have to grow one direction, then turn around and grow the other.

Post some pictures when you get good growth, I want to see it filled out.

Thanks for the advice. will post pictures as the project progesses. I like the idea of putting the poles close to the plant. with that said, what is the root structure like? how close should i get without disturbing the roots underground?

I have hops growing at a 60- maybe 75 degree angle. No issues.

My concern:

The angle you are proposing, will the hops just want to grow up- forcing you to do a lot of work to get them from "A" to "B".

I dunno if you do or not.

I fear you'll train them on the angle and they'll start and then they will just grow up rather than across. I think it's a 'try and tell us' scenario.

Good luck, if they angle works, this is a brilliant idea.

That looks really cool. One thing--you only need one pole, unless you plan on using something that isn't very strong.

Retrofit said:

The angle you are proposing, will the hops just want to grow up- forcing you to do a lot of work to get them from "A" to "B".

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Based on the angle I see in that picture, I have a feeling the OP will end up having to do a fair bit of "wraping" in the primary growth phase.

Anything that can be done to steeping the angle will reduce the amount of work required.

It will still work, it's just a matter of the degree of manual labor required.

Cool idea regardless.

any thoughts on materials to use? especially for the taller portion. the short part im not worried about should be pretty easy

beerhoppitus said:

any thoughts on materials to use? especially for the taller portion. the short part im not worried about should be pretty easy

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I just used some reclaimed galvanized rigid electrical conduit to support my hop cable. It's not cheap new but if you can find scrap, it is very strong and will last almost forever. I used 1-1/4 inch for 20 foot supports like this:

That's a aerial view the conduit is on the right.

What direction does that door open out to? Hops follow the sun to wrap around the cord. If they are open to the east it might work just fine. Any other direction and I would wonder.

the door does, in fact, open east so thats a plus

@Ischiavo Are your galvanized poles 20ft or is your structure 20 ft vertical? how far did you anchor them?

beerhoppitus said:

the door does, in fact, open east so thats a plus

@Ischiavo Are your galvanized poles 20ft or is your structure 20 ft vertical? how far did you anchor them?

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I threaded two 10ft lenghts together so the supports are 20 ft. I drove them into the ground a foot or so...as much as I could by hand. The main support is a 3/8 galvanized cable I have strung between two trees and guyed to the ground. Quite different from your proposed structure but, if you had a solid post to anchor some conduit to, I think it could be quite strong and durable.

For my son we just set a 16 foot treated 4x4 about 2 feet in the ground, then set 6 lines out to anchors using 3/8 inch rope. That sort of teepee configuration appears to have been fairly routine for commercial growers in the 1800s. Mine are growing to lines up to my porch railing.

Hello Beerhoppitus, just wondering if you followed through on this design and if so, any comments/pictures about how it turned out? I'm trying to come up with a small space design for next year and I like your idea of staging the height of the poles to get more overall length.

awesome design...any new pics?