New Hops Garden/ Trellis project (build photos)

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kMc21

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Moved into a new house last spring, and on the list was finding a suitable location for a hops garden. Didn't get anything in for last season, but I scouted a plot that has 7-8 hrs sun where I had room to grow up.

The first week of September 2014 I ordered 8 year-old plants from Great Lakes Hops. 4 Columbus, and 4 Horizon. Horizon is a Hybrid of Brewers Gold and Zattler that is somehow related to Nugget. I don't have much experience brewing with it, but I choose it for a few reasons: With 11-14% alpha, 6.5-8.5% beta, and very low cohumulones it seems like a powerhouse hop! It is said to have done well at the Great Lakes development plot in Michigan, (and I'm in Minnesota) and it is supposed to do well with more acidic soil, which I have.

I made a 6x12 foot box and tilled up the very sandy soil with a bunch of black dirt and compost. The plants were in the ground and watered for maybe 3 weeks before the first hard freeze shriveled them asleep. I covered them with leaf mulch and forgot about it for the winter.



 
I got to spend all winter designing the trellis. It was going to be tall and dominate over the backyard against the woods, so in order to let me build it, SWMBO said it had to look nice. …so an easy wire with guyed pipe supports was out!
Cedar it is then. I have been learning how to use Google sketch up for designing projects, and it really showed it's utility here. Here's what I came up with:









I think the scale of the little man is off, but I'm still learning the program. It's free, and easy to learn with a couple youtube videos.

Anyway, the trellis is 14' above ground: (this how high I can reach from the top of my ladder). The poles are 2' into the ground, but I had planned to set them in concrete also. The garden is 6x12' and there are two top wires 3.5' apart. This should be enough to keep the species somewhat separate….i think.

I had initially planned this with just two uprights and guy wires on either end, but I thought it would look better freestanding.
 
A few weeks ago it started to get nice out in Minnesota, and the snowy backyard melted in the welcome spring sun. There might still be an overnight freeze, and a rogue April snowstorm is not unheard of, but I was out doing yard work and decided it was time to get started on the trellis.

I purchased lumber, and then pre-cut and drilled everything to the dimensions per my sketchup plans. I figured it would be much easier to do this in the garage rather than 14' in the air. That way it would be an easy final assembly outside. Everything is cedar and got 2 coats of Behr transparent cedar tone deck stain.







 
Subbed. That's one sexy trellis! I'm totally looking forward to more posts on this.

I bought a crown of Zeus (CTZ identical to Columbus for all intensive purposes) and it was my biggest producer. I have "corn/soybean" soil in Illinois, so Zeus was a big fan. It's very aromatic and dank. It makes a killer single hop ipa. You'll be totally happy with it. Nugget is my next best producer. I use it in everything other than my ipas. It's a good all purpose hop. I don't need to use a lot of it in most styles, so it lasts forever. Horizon is similar. I think you'll be happy, and have more bittering hops than you'll know what to brew with in a few years! Cheers!
 
The poles went up first. They are 16' cedar 4x4. They were special order, but a local lumber yard had them for me in 1 day! They will stand 14 feet above ground with 2' buried. I sank it in an 8" by 4' sonotube of concrete. Four 60# bags per side. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how much support was needed. It is a lot of wood weight far up in the air, plus wind and hanging hops plants.
If I don't want the garden there anymore, I can always cut the posts off and bury the foundation. Any future improvement to that part of the property would need heavy equipment anyway so if it came to that it wouldn't be too hard to pull them out. Concrete was mixed by hand one bag at a time in a plastic tub and poured in. It doesn't have to be pretty because it's all underground anyway. I did this all by myself, and was pretty sore the next day.





Two days later the weather was again nice and I had time to finish it out. It was like assembling a giant jigsaw puzzle, and was actually pretty quick and easy. I was very glad I had put the planning and prep work into it already. A couple lag bolts and the beast was in the air! I put down some scrap lumber to stand the ladder on and had to be careful not to trample the plants!







Some minor changes from the design photos I showed. Instead of a top wire, I used 1/4" threaded rod tensioned to the crossbars with simple nuts and washers. This keeps everything nice and tight. I added two more cross supports for the rod to pass through.

I like how it turned out, and as I was putting my tools away I inspected the plants and found that all 8 have begun to push up green shoots through the soil! All that's left to do is string the twines and train the bines!
Cheers!
-km
 
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