Hop Garden

[user 108580]

Finished building my hop garden today and thought I'd share pictures! Its built with 3/4" (in hindsight that was overkill) galvanized piping. I have eye bolts through the top that will run twine through to let the hops grow up up up! I used some steel cable to support the top as It's pretty tall. The trellis itself is 12 ft tall but with the 2 ft garden bed the hops will have 10 ft of growth. Cant wait for my rhizomes to show up!

 

[LabRatBrewer]

Very Nice!

 

[vogtenstein222]

Awesome. This is a really cool reference as I'm wanting to get about 4 plants in in 2014.

 

[jonos7]

10 feet is kinda short, some of my first year hops did 20+ feet

 

[user 108580]

10 feet is kinda short, some of my first year hops did 20+ feet

Yeah, I know its nowhere near as tall as a hop plant can grow, but its what I was able to manage.

 

[BBL_Brewer]

Yeah, 10 feet is kind of short. Maybe not for first year, but mature crowns can go nuts. I have a 12 foot trellis. Started at 18 and then dropped it for ease of harvest. I have support wires that go to a tree behind the trellis and a heavy duty cemented swing set in front of it. I either prune the bines when they reach the top or train them onto one of the support wires which have quite a bit of length. If you prune them, cut the very tip of the growing shoot (about an inch or two probably) and then the bine will brach out more laterally and more bushy and not grow as long. I've had pretty good success doing that, and it didn't seem to decrease harvest any. Nice looking trellis though.

 

[user 108580]

Yeah, 10 feet is kind of short. Maybe not for first year, but mature crowns can go nuts. I have a 12 foot trellis. Started at 18 and then dropped it for ease of harvest. I have support wires that go to a tree behind the trellis and a heavy duty cemented swing set in front of it. I either prune the bines when they reach the top or train them onto one of the support wires which have quite a bit of length. If you prune them, cut the very tip of the growing shoot (about an inch or two probably) and then the bine will brach out more laterally and more bushy and not grow as long. I've had pretty good success doing that, and it didn't seem to decrease harvest any. Nice looking trellis though.

Thanks for the tips! I'm not too worried about how short the trellis is. I'm not going for quantity with the hops. My idea behind the garden was to get enough hops to make a big wet hop IPA once a year and thats it. I'll be growing three plants in this garden and that should be more than enough to accomplish that with some left over.

Maybe someday when I have more space I'll make a proper support system, but for now this will have to do.

 

[BBL_Brewer]

I'd only put two plants in there, tops, and preferably the same variety. How long is that? Looks about 6 feet or so? the plants will spread out latterally quite a bit even if you don't prune them. They'll get all tangled up and if you cram too much into one space they'll shade each other. You could do two plants, two varieties, but it will probably be somewhat difficult to tell the difference between the cones without smelling them. If you're just going to throw them all in the same batch though and don't really care, then I guess it doesn't matter. You could easily get 3-4 lbs off of that though depending on variety. That's a lot of hops you could put to good use. Don't let homegrown scare you (unkonwn AAu's and all) they make great beer.

 

[user 108580]

I'd only put two plants in there, tops, and preferably the same variety. How long is that? Looks about 6 feet or so? the plants will spread out latterally quite a bit even if you don't prune them. They'll get all tangled up and if you cram too much into one space they'll shade each other. You could do two plants, two varieties, but it will probably be somewhat difficult to tell the difference between the cones without smelling them. If you're just going to throw them all in the same batch though and don't really care, then I guess it doesn't matter. You could easily get 3-4 lbs off of that though depending on variety. That's a lot of hops you could put to good use. Don't let homegrown scare you (unkonwn AAu's and all) they make great beer.

It's a 4x8. I planned on putting two up front on the sides, and one in back in the middle. Bad idea?

And homegrown doesnt scare me haha. If I found a hop plant in the middle of nowhere I would probably harvest as many cones as I could and see what I could make with it. I like experimenting.

 

[BBL_Brewer]

It's a 4x8. I planned on putting two up front on the sides, and one in back in the middle. Bad idea?

And homegrown doesnt scare me haha. If I found a hop plant in the middle of nowhere I would probably harvest as many cones as I could and see what I could make with it. I like experimenting.

Well, honestly I'd only put in two, but you could put three and just train less bines if you really want three different varieties. Or you could just let it grow into one big jumbled assorted hops plant.