Spring has finally sprung here in the great white North, and the first day where the temperature broke 60 gave me good reason to focus on installing my new (albeit small) hop trellis for growing this season's crop.
If you're anything like me, your wife and property size/shape have a lot to do with where you plant hops. We're fortunate to live in the perfect latitude for hops, right around 43 degrees north, in West Michigan, but my house's southern exposure (ideal for lots of sun that hops like) is the front lawn. Bearing in mind that my wife would rather have a third eye in her forehead than have an enormous hop trellis in her front yard, I decided that the southwest side of the house would have to suffice. I decided my trellis would be along the property line to maximize sun exposure.
Assemble The Trellis
First, I decided that I didn't want hops growing up my siding or anywhere near the house, so it would have to be a standalone structure. If you're fine with vines growing up and into the cracks and crevices of your house, you're welcome to it, but another reason to move away from the house is that if you're not planting right on the southern face, you're losing half of the daylight for your rhizomes.
The area my trellis was to go in is 18 feet long on the side of the house, so I decided to make the trellis supports 16 feet apart with a foot of space on either side. I also knew I wanted to plant 4 rhizomes, and had to make do with a 5 foot wide span. I'll save you the trouble of commenting -- I know they're supposed to be spaced farther apart than this. We all have space and resource limitations from time to time -- the wife made it clear that 5 feet was going to be the biggest she would tolerate. I accepted this and moved on. I also knew I wanted the trellis to give the plants plenty of vertical growing space, so I planned to make them about 10 feet tall.
Dig The Post Holes
Next was material round-up:
(2) 4"x4"x12' treated posts for the main trellis supports
(1) 2"x4"x10' treated lumber (to be cut in half) for each of the end supports
(8) stainless or galvanized J-hooks to support the growing wire but allow for easy harvesting in the fall
110' of medium-duty stranded wire for the bines to grow up and across
(4) U-channel landscaping/snow fencing spikes to secure the wire to and serve as a removable land anchor (plus they're cheap)
We started the process by measuring where we wanted our holes, and used a post hole digger to dig as far down as possible. In my EXTREMELY clay-heavy soil, we got to about 2'9", which my shoulders told me was more than enough on both posts. That means I had just over 9 feet of trellis height, which my wife told me was also more than enough. Her glare confirmed this.
Set And Level The Posts
The first step after digging the holes was to cut the 10 foot 2x4 in half, and screw it to the 4x4's face with 3-inch deck screws that won't rust and break in the harsh Michigan weather.
Once the 2x4 is attached to the interior face of the post, measure your spacing for your wire supports. For mine, because I had 60 inches and wanted to maintain aesthetically pleasing spacing, I did one support hook 2 inches in from each side, then the second for the second vine of each variety (I did Cascade and Centennial, BTW) 18 inches in from that, which 20 inches in between the interior lines. Be sure to pre-drill holes slightly smaller than the diameter of your hook screw, or it'll take you forever to screw them in.
Channel locks or locking pliers work well to spin these in. IT IS CRITICAL that your hook end up facing upwards -- if not, the wire will just slip out and your vines will fall to the ground. We did it this way so in the fall, all I have to do is loosen my wire, climb a ladder to the top of one support, and lift the slack in the wire over the top point of the hook and everything will drop for harvesting.
Trellis Ready For Wires
Once your hooks are in, take your posts and stand them up in your holes. You'll probably want help with this. We chose not to concrete ours in place because we have naturally clay-thick soil, so we just packed the clay down around the posts. If you live in a place with actual dirt on the ground, you might consider a Quickrete or something like that for added support.
Then take your wire, wrap a heavy loop in one end, and slide it around one of the hooks. Run the wire to the other support, and simply wrap the wire over the hook and down to the ground.
We used U-channel landscaping posts for solid anchoring, but they also have small holes that we then ran the wire through to keep everything taut.
That's all there was to it -- we dug holes at the base of each wire and added Miracle Grow garden soil because our dirt is so bad, but put the rhizomes in as directed and hope they take off from there.
Project Complete And Ready For Hops
This whole thing took about two hours to install, and most of that was spent whining about my grossly under worked deltoids trying to run a post hole digger into three feet of modeling clay.
This is a simple setup, and only cost about $60 for all the parts and pieces.
Good luck with your own hops this year!
If you're anything like me, your wife and property size/shape have a lot to do with where you plant hops. We're fortunate to live in the perfect latitude for hops, right around 43 degrees north, in West Michigan, but my house's southern exposure (ideal for lots of sun that hops like) is the front lawn. Bearing in mind that my wife would rather have a third eye in her forehead than have an enormous hop trellis in her front yard, I decided that the southwest side of the house would have to suffice. I decided my trellis would be along the property line to maximize sun exposure.
Assemble The Trellis
First, I decided that I didn't want hops growing up my siding or anywhere near the house, so it would have to be a standalone structure. If you're fine with vines growing up and into the cracks and crevices of your house, you're welcome to it, but another reason to move away from the house is that if you're not planting right on the southern face, you're losing half of the daylight for your rhizomes.
The area my trellis was to go in is 18 feet long on the side of the house, so I decided to make the trellis supports 16 feet apart with a foot of space on either side. I also knew I wanted to plant 4 rhizomes, and had to make do with a 5 foot wide span. I'll save you the trouble of commenting -- I know they're supposed to be spaced farther apart than this. We all have space and resource limitations from time to time -- the wife made it clear that 5 feet was going to be the biggest she would tolerate. I accepted this and moved on. I also knew I wanted the trellis to give the plants plenty of vertical growing space, so I planned to make them about 10 feet tall.
Dig The Post Holes
Next was material round-up:
(2) 4"x4"x12' treated posts for the main trellis supports
(1) 2"x4"x10' treated lumber (to be cut in half) for each of the end supports
(8) stainless or galvanized J-hooks to support the growing wire but allow for easy harvesting in the fall
110' of medium-duty stranded wire for the bines to grow up and across
(4) U-channel landscaping/snow fencing spikes to secure the wire to and serve as a removable land anchor (plus they're cheap)
We started the process by measuring where we wanted our holes, and used a post hole digger to dig as far down as possible. In my EXTREMELY clay-heavy soil, we got to about 2'9", which my shoulders told me was more than enough on both posts. That means I had just over 9 feet of trellis height, which my wife told me was also more than enough. Her glare confirmed this.
Set And Level The Posts
The first step after digging the holes was to cut the 10 foot 2x4 in half, and screw it to the 4x4's face with 3-inch deck screws that won't rust and break in the harsh Michigan weather.
Once the 2x4 is attached to the interior face of the post, measure your spacing for your wire supports. For mine, because I had 60 inches and wanted to maintain aesthetically pleasing spacing, I did one support hook 2 inches in from each side, then the second for the second vine of each variety (I did Cascade and Centennial, BTW) 18 inches in from that, which 20 inches in between the interior lines. Be sure to pre-drill holes slightly smaller than the diameter of your hook screw, or it'll take you forever to screw them in.
Channel locks or locking pliers work well to spin these in. IT IS CRITICAL that your hook end up facing upwards -- if not, the wire will just slip out and your vines will fall to the ground. We did it this way so in the fall, all I have to do is loosen my wire, climb a ladder to the top of one support, and lift the slack in the wire over the top point of the hook and everything will drop for harvesting.
Trellis Ready For Wires
Once your hooks are in, take your posts and stand them up in your holes. You'll probably want help with this. We chose not to concrete ours in place because we have naturally clay-thick soil, so we just packed the clay down around the posts. If you live in a place with actual dirt on the ground, you might consider a Quickrete or something like that for added support.
Then take your wire, wrap a heavy loop in one end, and slide it around one of the hooks. Run the wire to the other support, and simply wrap the wire over the hook and down to the ground.
We used U-channel landscaping posts for solid anchoring, but they also have small holes that we then ran the wire through to keep everything taut.
That's all there was to it -- we dug holes at the base of each wire and added Miracle Grow garden soil because our dirt is so bad, but put the rhizomes in as directed and hope they take off from there.
Project Complete And Ready For Hops
This whole thing took about two hours to install, and most of that was spent whining about my grossly under worked deltoids trying to run a post hole digger into three feet of modeling clay.
This is a simple setup, and only cost about $60 for all the parts and pieces.
Good luck with your own hops this year!
