Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Hop Trellis

Yesterday I finally finished building a hop trellis in the backyard.  This would not have been possible without the help of my lovely assistant, Mel.  About a month ago I ordered a few hop rhizomes to grow my own hops.  I ordered nugget, cascade, and willamette hops.   I am super excited about getting the hops planted and eventually being able to make beers with them.  The trellis is just over 10' tall at its highest point and is in an "L" shape around the garden.  The long side being 16' and short side is 8'.  The most difficult part of the build was by far digging the post holes.  The soil here is almost entirely clay and I live on the side of a hill, so digging the holes deep enough took a lot of effort and time.  They were dug approximately 3' into the ground using nothing but a couple of $5 shovels bought from the lawn and garden section of a local grocery chain. The first shovel broke after getting halfway down on the last of the four holes.  I promised myself I wouldn't buy another cheap shovel, but I did so anyway to stay on budget.


The trellis is now ready to give the soon-to-arrive hops a happy place to climb.  It also provides some much needed shade from the Texas sun for the garden.  There is still some work to be done providing a better soiled footing for the rhizomes, and I plan on adding a bench on the end for a good place to sit by the garden while adding some extra support to the long side of the trellis.  For the time being however, the build is done!