Stringing Up My Hops

I finally got around to stringing up my hops bines - oh man, I waited way too long to do this! What a mess! The thing is, I have my roof being reshingled and wanted to wait until that was done because I was afraid the hops would interfere with his work. But finally they just got way too unruly sprawled all over the ground and I had to deal with them. I've got a whole bunch of Hallertauer that I've had for about 7 years now, and some new Nugget as of the last year. I figure by next year they should be producing just about enough to keep me self-sufficient in hops.

When stringing hops you have to use some sort of organic twine like baler's twine. I've tried synthetic ones but the hops just can't cling to it - they grow up so far and then their weight causes them to slide back down again. I simply have come hooks and eye screws screwed into the 2x4 on my eaves, and stakes in the ground below. I use a double length of twine and twist the two lengths together.

Actually I started out with wooden stakes in the ground, and a few years ago I upgraded one of them to one of these screw-in stakes from Lee Valley

But as you can see from the website they are pretty expensive, so I never did upgrade the rest of my stakes. This year went to a local farm supply store and bought some of those things you screw into the ground to tether an animal to. They aren't nearly as good as the stake from Lee Valley but they are about 1/4 the price, and should still work fine. We shall see.

I made a terrible mess of the hops from waiting too long to string them up. I broke off a whole bunch of bines since they are pretty fragile. And you can see in the video they just look a mess. It took quite a while to untangle them as much as I did, and they were so far grown that I've got massive rashes up my arms and one leg - hops can do that to you. Note to self : don't wait so long next year!