First Trellis, 2nd Year Cascades

First post on HBT. Lurked a lot about growing hops and it helped me start two cascade rhizomes last year. They did great and it is time to get a better trellis. My budget is under $100. Here is what I have planned so far:



Uprights will be pressure treated 4'x4'x12'. Sunk in 2' with just tamped dirt. Top board will be a 2"x6" but I might cut it out depending on costs. I only have two plants and am trying to maximize the growing 'height'. Two leads per plant that zig zag. I figure I could easily get 15'+ of growing 'height' this way. I know if might be tough to harvest but I am trying to be a bit courteous to my neighbors.

Thoughts?
Can I replace the third post with some wire or rope to save costs?
Any other ideas that would be a bit more ideal?
What about training a bine up the posts?

NotSoSimple said:

First post on HBT. Lurked a lot about growing hops and it helped me start two cascade rhizomes last year. They did great and it is time to get a better trellis. My budget is under $100. Here is what I have planned so far:

Uprights will be pressure treated 4'x4'x12'. Sunk in 2' with just tamped dirt. Top board will be a 2"x6" but I might cut it out depending on costs. I only have two plants and am trying to maximize the growing 'height'. Two leads per plant that zig zag. I figure I could easily get 15'+ of growing 'height' this way. I know if might be tough to harvest but I am trying to be a bit courteous to my neighbors.

Thoughts?
Can I replace the third post with some wire or rope to save costs?
Any other ideas that would be a bit more ideal?
What about training a bine up the posts?

Click to expand...

Welcome!

If you can get 16' or 20' posts you will be better off. If you can't do more than 10' vertical, you make do with what you have. It will be a lot of work to train bines onto strings that "flat". Angle up at least 45 degrees (60 degrees is better) and they will do a better job of climbing on their own.

For me, I will put in more prep and trellis design to avoid a ton of manual labor over the course of the year. A weekend of good trellis construction will pay off later if it means the daily (you WILL be training bines daily with that setup, probably twice a day) maintenance is eliminated and harvest is easier.

Can you train a bine up a 4x4 post? No, not really. They wind too tight for that.

Can you use a cable or rebar in the center? Yep. But considering they are BOTH cascades, just wire post-to-post and train them cris-crossing. Won't matter trying to keep them separated if they are the same variety.

NotSoSimple said:

Uprights will be pressure treated 4'x4'x12'. Sunk in 2' with just tamped dirt. Top board will be a 2"x6" but I might cut it out depending on costs

Click to expand...

IMO You need that top board/cross bar. Don't get rid of it. Otherwise your outside posts could be pulled inward and even fall over. Doesn't need to be 2x6, could be something relatively small - it's just there to maintain the distance between the outside posts.

Thanks for the help guys. I will take a closer look at getting 16' posts.

So a little more height (taller post) and more angle (45*) on the jute/sissle would improve this design. Got it.

Just an update. Project finished. I ended up using 4x4x12 posts because the truck I was going to borrow fell through. Had to throw them on my Outback and didn't want to stretch it. Top support is a 2x6x8. All pressure treated. I buried them 2' deep and used half a bag of quickrete each. Dont mind the missing lag bolt.. my 2 year old lost a 3/8" washer. It will hold up until I can get a replacement. I just tied half bricks to each end of the sisel and buried them. Total cost was ~$60, which included a post level I purchased. I measured out each 'leg' and it comes out to ~24' of travel for each bine. Way better than the 10' I had last year. I might have to train them a little but to keep them on their own sisel, but I am out there every day to tend to the garden anyway.