G'dang - Had To Extend The Hop Pole...

I was looking at the hops today and was thinking..."Damn the pole is gonna be too short".


The joint on the pole measures about 15' .... Went to menards got me another 5' of conduit & end connector.


My pole should be a solid 20'

I can't believe how fast they are growing and how thick the bines are at this point. Here's a shot w/ a ball point pen in the pick.


Last week I made me a Crap-Tap Lauter Tun. So I can fertilize and keep the downy mildew away. Believe it or not, this will be the first watering & feeding I've done so far.


FYI - Its basically a double nested bucket with the upper bucket drilled out to act as a false bottom. The bucket has 2" of compost/manure & about 4.5 gal of water.

Time to go feed the hops...

Schlenkerla said:

My pole should be a solid 20'

Click to expand...

Ok juvenile humor aside...looks good man!

GloHoppa said:

Ok juvenile humor aside...looks good man!

Click to expand...

I so innocently stepped into that one!

What varieties are those

On the left Nugget. On the right Cascade. Both are very fast growers with high yields

I'm SO jealous! It has been cold and cloudy up until last week. Several of my hops aren't even tall enough to trellis. But, after three days of sunshine & heat, I'm seeing proper growth on some: Fuggles 22" in three days, Cascades 38"!

It's amazing how a little heat & moisture kick start these. My first year rhisomes took until July to reach this point. Might I say w/ lots of water and primping.

These are at year 3. Like I said earlier I haven't done watering or added fertilizer yet.

In fact I had to trim them back quite a bit. I used tomato cages as a starter support. Last week the whole tomato cage was covered. They are trying to expand into the yard.

Holy Bat-Fuq Robbin!!

I had too extend it again. The wicked weather twisted to hell my hops and the pole.

The new pole is now 1' below the discharge of my 3rd floor fireplace!!!!


Sorry about the dark pic had to race to get it done before sunset. I was afraid I'd find my babies on the ground some morning.

Made my own "Telescoping PVC pole!". :rockin:

10' x 2.5" PVC >>> 10' x 2.0" PVC >>> 10' x 1.5" PVC = Max length 25'

I'm planning to rig it like a flag pole. I got a 3" PVC coupler that will ride up and down the pole via a top pulley and an eye level rope cleat.

I'm using eyelet-carriage bolts to ratchet up and down the pole.

I also dropped the 2.5" PVC over a double corrugated fence post (Stop sign).

Fricking awesome. What year are those? Mine are still thin and stringy.

Ed,

These are year number 3. However, I transplanted them last spring. The transplant was basket ball sized. I dropped each one in 18" deep hole on top of 40lbs of compost/manure, covered it with two bags of black dirt, then topped it w/ bark mulch.

Left is nugget the right is cascade. The cascade is about 23' long right now and has about 4-5 monster bines running of the rope.
Probably too much weight. I was hard to stop them. They were growin' faster than a mofo. Its hard to clip a big healthy bine. Even if there's four.

BTW - I have yet to water them this year. Assumes spraying cow-poop water on the leaves don't count.

This morning I yanked out the old pole & very carefully restrung the guidelines. It was windy and I was on the top of the ladder square-notting lines together.

I was wondering which would worse; falling, dropping the guideline, or both. Probably both...