DIY Hop Trellis - 2012 Edition

Krista and I have been growing hops ever since we moved up to Oregon  (the PNW is the 3rd largest hop growing region in the world, behind Germany and Ethiopia - who knew?).   We love the look, the smell, and of course, the ability to put our harvest straight into a batch of homebrew in the fall.  We’ve also found that, while they seem to attract aphids like crazy, they also then provide a great nesting and feeding place for ladybugs, who then keep most of the rest of the garden pests in check.

Warning - Ladybugs in compromising positions next:

The thing about hops is that they’re evolved to grow great if they can climb vertically – at least 10 feet high.  If the season is good, and the plants are healthy, they can easily grow taller than that.  For ease of harvest, you want them climbing up something you can control and possibly cut – twine, etc.

A hop field in Germany I saw mid - summer last year.  I'd assume that the bottom of the sign in the foreground is at least 6 - 7 ft tall.  Sorry, I was in a moving bus, so it's a bit blurry.

We don’t have an obvious place to attach 10 vertical feet of twine in the garden, so some sort of contraption must be built.  Last year, I dusted off my old Scout lashing skills to build a tripod at one end of our 4 hop mounds, then run a cross beam at the top over to a tall pole I lashed to the fence.  It worked ok, but needed a lot more support in the middle, especially once the hop vines were heavy with leaves and flowers

2011 - Still Early season - the trellis is up, but starting to look weak in the middle

2011- Ok, so this is pretty bad.  One month after the last pic.

This year, I may have gone a bit lashing crazy, but I’m really happy with the very solid structure that we ended up with.

First, I built the new tripod for the middle area, got it up, and realized that our neighbor’s Butterfly Bush had to be trimmed back a bit from it’s fall growth.  Luckily, she was amenable to that.

If you're not familiar with the Butterfly Bush, they're pretty - nice flowers, nice smell, but they have been declared an invasive species - here's an article from the Oregonian.  We enjoy our neighbor's, but it is a prolific grower - check out on the ground what got cut out, compared to 2 photos up.

Anyway, I was a bit rusty on the lashing skills, but I think all of the joinings are fairly solid. This structure looks much more solid and stable than last year's.  There's the extra tripod in the middle, and each tripod, and the end pole, are attached to one other, and then the fence.

Krista, inspecting my work

After building the structure, I had to get the actual vines climbing up something - generally, I worked twine from the top pole to the bottom pole, then encouraged the vines to find those lines.

I'm really happy with the way the trellis turned out this year!  I guess we'll see if the structural improvements actually do work, but I'm optimistic for a great season and then harvest (and then beer!)

One quick postscript - for the top, I actually went over the top of the trellis, then back down to the fence, where I built in some slack - we've found that it's possible to feed slack in to the top of the line, let the hop vine go limp or coil, and allow the top to keep growing vertically.  Around the fence post, I did this sort of quick release clove hitch, with the slack behind it.  

Here's the knot - it goes around the fence, then a clove hitch, set up to pull loose with a tug, then the gathered slack hanging from the quick release loop.  Am I over- or under- thinking this?

Knowing of at least 3 other Eagle Scouts who should be reading this regularly - any other knot suggestions?  Adjustable tension isn't really a big deal, so I didn't bother going Taut Line - the need is to have a static knot with easy untie, slack feed, and easy re-tie around a pole, assuming that you'd have to do that 2 - 3 times over the course of the season, with easy management of excess that's the need.  I'm open to suggestions.

Here's the final trellis, with the hops training on to the lines

Happy Almost Summer!

d3