We had a small local hop farmer give a talk at a recent homebrew club meeting, and this gave me the idea to use netting (on a smaller scale than him!) for my hops. Last year I grew them on sisal rope up the side of my house, and for a first year plants they did OK. This year I've added 4 more crowns from Great Lakes Hops to the 4 from last year. I will be moving them to the back yard and rigging them up the side of my 'boat shed' where they should get maximum sun, and more room to grow.
I searched and searched for the kind of netting the hop guy talked about, and finally found Memphis Net. From the home page you'd never know they sell netting for plants, but my search got me deep into their site. Apparently crop netting falls under fishing. Go figure.
After searching their products I settled on one that was the perfect size, or so it seemed. It's 3ft wide (by 392 ft long), in a 6"x6" profile, similar to the pic below. At 3ft wide there are 7 vertical strands that I can train the bines up. I have about 14ft of height to work with.
The thing I'm not so sure about now is how the bines will take to the thin strands. I was looking for a rope/string netting, but they were too expensive. I plan to run sisal rope up the 2 sides to give it a more secure attachment. The netting along should be strong enough to hold them, but I expect they'll blow around with out the rope supports.
Has anyone grown hops on real thin netting like this? Any thoughts/concerns?
I searched and searched for the kind of netting the hop guy talked about, and finally found Memphis Net. From the home page you'd never know they sell netting for plants, but my search got me deep into their site. Apparently crop netting falls under fishing. Go figure.
After searching their products I settled on one that was the perfect size, or so it seemed. It's 3ft wide (by 392 ft long), in a 6"x6" profile, similar to the pic below. At 3ft wide there are 7 vertical strands that I can train the bines up. I have about 14ft of height to work with.
The thing I'm not so sure about now is how the bines will take to the thin strands. I was looking for a rope/string netting, but they were too expensive. I plan to run sisal rope up the 2 sides to give it a more secure attachment. The netting along should be strong enough to hold them, but I expect they'll blow around with out the rope supports.
Has anyone grown hops on real thin netting like this? Any thoughts/concerns?
![polynetting.jpg polynetting.jpg](https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/data/attach/155/155156-polynetting.jpg)