Help for potential grower!!

Want to grow hops! How should I design a hop trellis? Anyone have a good design? I'm a first time grower. Also where do I buy plants and when can I get them. Do I need to pre order for 2013? Please help

Just bought a house and I really really want to buy plants or rhizomes!

tall pole with some strong string running up it. They really want to go vert no matter what you build so the taller the better

you could buy plants now, if you can find them, but you're better off waiting until spring. no need to pre-order now, just look for announcements in february or march.

you can use a trellis, but like dirk said hops like to grow straight up so they won't use 90% of the trellis... they'll only use it as support to grow straight up. ropes work best. so find somewhere where you can hang ropes like a balcony, eaves-trough make something like a flagpole or a "cross-string" strung across two trees with vertical strings falling down from it. scroll through this sub-forum there are lots of pics of how people grew their hops.

Don't know where you are, but I bought a dozen different hop plants (varieties that I use) from Great Lakes Hops (not rhizomes) in late October last year, got them planted before the snow set in and I harvested more hops than I will use all year. Buy from Great Lakes online and your trellis will be a strand of Jute Twine, that goes up as high as you can go...mine went to eye bolts on the rafter ends of my 15' pole barn, but the plants could have gone taller. Basically, tie the string to the tallest thing you can rig up, and make it strong enought to withstand the weight and winds (a few of mine went down, but I saved them). There are tons of ideas if you do a search, but most revolve around tall poles, with cables in between, which attach strings down to the plant. However...anything you can attach a long string to will work....it is essentially a cultivated weed...you do not need to be a gardener to grow them.