I have a nice volunteer patch of hops behind my house that I discovered last year. They have been there quite a while and are quite well established. Last fall my friend and I picked until we could pick no more and ended up with about 3-lbs dried and there were at least half still left on the bines.
So this year to hopefully make the harvesting a little easier, I wanted to try and support them from twine. I didn't want to invest a fortune so I got some of the coated wire clothesline and strung it between two trees about 80-ft apart and roughly above the hops and pulled it nice and tight. Then I tied about 40 twines (rated 8-lb) to the cable and plan to stake them in when the bines are ready to start climbing.
So, my question...anyone know how heavy a single bine might end up if it made it 20-ft up one of the twines? How about 40 of them? I really don't want this thing to fall apart and will invest some more time and money to redo it now if necessary. Thanks for any input.
Also, I havent been able to figure out what variety these may be. They are quite citrusy and piney. Anyone have a guess?
Here are a few shots of last years crop:
So this year to hopefully make the harvesting a little easier, I wanted to try and support them from twine. I didn't want to invest a fortune so I got some of the coated wire clothesline and strung it between two trees about 80-ft apart and roughly above the hops and pulled it nice and tight. Then I tied about 40 twines (rated 8-lb) to the cable and plan to stake them in when the bines are ready to start climbing.
So, my question...anyone know how heavy a single bine might end up if it made it 20-ft up one of the twines? How about 40 of them? I really don't want this thing to fall apart and will invest some more time and money to redo it now if necessary. Thanks for any input.
Also, I havent been able to figure out what variety these may be. They are quite citrusy and piney. Anyone have a guess?
Here are a few shots of last years crop: