Building a hop trellis...?

[Rob2010SS]

Looking at building a hop trellis. I want it to be a "T" shape with at least 16 ft sticking out of the ground. I'm thinking I can get a 20 ft post and bury it 4 ft deep.

My questions are as follows...
1. How do you secure it in the ground? Do I need concrete? Do I did the hole, put the post in, and fill it with concrete?

2. How do I keep it level and straight?

Thanks.

 

[WBB]

With a post and rail fence, the posts are just sunk about 36 inches I think and then they backfill and tamp. Some of my posts feel like they are in concrete, but it’s just earth holding it. And they’ve been in the ground through 3 season cycles of full 0* - 100*. I would think you can do the same.

But if you wanted to go concrete you could get the circle forms and then put j bolts I think they are called in the concrete while it curing so you can screw a bracket on the top the form and then set your post.

Level and plumb I think you mean, but just get a level.

 

[Shawn3997]

I saw a "How it's made" for hops and basically all they do is tie up a lot of twine for the hops to grow on. I think they love growing up twine. That was indoors though so maybe something that will do well outside.

 

[Anyhowe]

Looking at building a hop trellis. I want it to be a "T" shape with at least 16 ft sticking out of the ground. I'm thinking I can get a 20 ft post and bury it 4 ft deep.

My questions are as follows...
1. How do you secure it in the ground? Do I need concrete? Do I did the hole, put the post in, and fill it with concrete?

2. How do I keep it level and straight?

Thanks.

 

[Rob2010SS]

View attachment 585069

That's pretty sweet and looks fairly easy. What size lumber and how did you secure it to the ground?

 

[Anyhowe]

Well it was relatively simple. I wanted it as tall as I could get it. So I didn't want to bury 1/3 of it in the ground. This is either over designed and under engineered, or under designed and over engineered, I can't tell...

The vertical is a 20 foot 4x6 as I wanted more stiffness in one direction knowing I was going to complement the weaker direction with extra diagonals from the top. a 4x4 could be fine for 10-12 feet, but IDK about 18 feet high; its a long way up there... All the other structural members are 4x4. The top hop supporting I- sections are made up of 2x2's. The structural members are lagged together with big ass 5 inch lag bolts, brackets were used on the 90 degree corners.

The system is designed such that the hops can be lowered for harvest. If you look close at the picture in the last post, rope runs from the bottom of each side to the top of the hop bines. There is a ring (instead of a pully) at the top of each section so each 4 hop section can be lowered to the ground. It also allows for lowering to harvest 'some' of the hops and then raising back up. At the end of the season, the twine is cut off and thrown away with the bines. New ones are attached next year and raised up.

before shot of the garden.

I

 

[Anyhowe]

I assembled the unit on the ground and raised it like a barn. It was crazy heavy and took 2.5 of us. We quickly tried to stabilize it with some boards, but it was seriously sketchy. My neighbor who helped lift it bailed and said if this thing falls its is going to kill somebody and he wanted no part of it. lol he was right!

I only wanted 2 feet into the ground so I built a concrete footing with a 4 inch slab and some rebar that extended into a column formed by a bucket. In the end I put extra concrete around the bucket as well. Here is the shot of the rebar for the slab. You can see two pieces or rebar sticking up for continuity into the future column. Its about 2x2x2

 

[Anyhowe]

Ok so here it is lifted in place with the wood holding it up and the bucket for the form of the column. The slab is cured from the day before, but got covered in dirt during the lift. Did I mention the lift and this set up was sketchy? Yup. The supports you see are temporary and were quickly nailed on.

And with the mud in place.

 

[Anyhowe]

Again, not being comfortable with the loamy soil, I did not want the side supports to move with the wind and the tall and very heavy structure (not imbedded very far) so I built a added a little thrust block to each lower support, screwed on. These are typical deck supports you can get at a hardware store. I was going to put them only on two sides, but damn, on all four this thing is UNMOVABLE. And given wind and crap, that is a good thing. The damage this could cause in the middle of the night could be substantial. Can you say 'overkill'...

 

[Anyhowe]

Here are the top I-sections. Screwed together with some brackets and I bolts for the ropes and twine. One is upside down. I hope it makes sense. These are raised and lowered at the beginning and end of the season.

 

[Anyhowe]

It holds 8 plants. This is my first year. Dog killed one mid season, 3 did not produce, as expected in the first year. 4 were more mature, and look happy.
Soon to harvest!

 

[Anyhowe]

So it is like 18 feet tall. It looks like 100. After raising it I wondered if there were any zoning codes against this. My wife said, no problem, we have a chainsaw. The neighbors were all curious too. lol We used the lower supports for peas to climb early in the year. they are gone now. We also have a bunch of bush beans growing in the garden. so it is not like like the hop trellis took away the whole garden.

 

[Apimyces]

I saw a "How it's made" for hops and basically all they do is tie up a lot of twine for the hops to grow on. I think they love growing up twine. That was indoors though so maybe something that will do well outside.

Getting hops to grow on twine is easy. Getting that twine high enough, and staying there all season, is the hard part.