GearBeer's Overengineered Hop Trellis

[DrJerryrigger]

Ive just had a quick read and look at your post and the first thing that springs to mind is the quality of your soil. To be honest it looks terrible. You really need to get some well rotted organic material in there, and I mean bucket loads.
Excellent trellis though.

I was thinking the same thing. The trellis is amazing, if your soil was equally over engineered then you'd get spectacular results.
I know someone who planted some hops last spring. He didn't train them, just put them next to an existing trellis. But he has good soil, and dumped a lot of composed cow poop on them. He had a spectacular yield from first year plants. They would have done even better had they been trained on a proper trellis.

Hops suck up a lot of nutrients if they can which is a little tricky with a perennial. You can get a great yield by dumping lots of chemical fertilizer on them, but that will weaken the soil, and in the years to come your yield will go down even with the same chemical additions. The best approach is to get the soil in really good shape before planting, and add more compost/poop every year. If your starting with not so great soil it's good to till in lots of good stuff (like compost), and get some of it deep (18 in or more). Since you already have plants in there you'll have to decide if you want to dig them up (which damages the large root structure they've made), or to just try to improve the soil in a less invasive way (which doesn't work as well). I can't say which would be better for you next year, but digging it all up would likely be better 3 years from now. But at the very least, put a few inches of composed cow poop down in the spring.

 

[johnnyboy1965]

With reference to your soil condition, heres what I would do.
Wait until spring and when the first shoots start to appear and dig them up.
Dig a hole at least 3ft deep and line it witk thick polythene. Puncture this many times with a garden fork. Throw in at list 6 inches of broken up polystyrene, on top of this throw in 6 inches of any material that holds water
( Ripped up cardboard boxes are ideal) on top of this mix 50/50 of quality topsoil and well rotted horse manure and re-plant your rhizomes.

 

[Golddiggie]

For the soil improvement, if this is an option for you, how about getting some seaweed and dumping it as a layer post harvest? Or, build an over-engineered compost bin (conveyor belt anyone?) and just get that sucker built up over the next X months... Or get that tiller again, a truck load of composted manure, and some help, to carefully pull the hops out once the ground is willing and put super-charge your soil.

I'm thinking of using some seaweed (solid and liquid) when needing to feed the hops (when I am able to finally plant some)... If I can get family to let me plant in their yard/garden, then I'll do whatever it takes to deep fertilize the soil before planting. I might, actually, talk with an aunt and uncle that's closer to me than my sister, to see if I can use part of their garden (with max sun)... I might need to let them sample what I make with the harvest to use their land though. That uncle can DRINK!!!

I know there are ways to [naturally] get even the crappiest of soils to a really good place. We did that when we ended up with mostly clay in our back yard after getting a pool put in... Within two years we had a solid garden going. Within three we had the best in the neighborhood. That's all thanks to things my father did to the soil both before we started planting, and during the times when nothing was planted/growing. I realize you don't want to turn over the soil when hops are planted, so I would adjust to make sure the soil was in a good place before then. Being in a state where it's pretty easy to get items like seaweed to include in the soil makes for some great gardening. Most fish markets [typically] use it, so you can often get what they're ready to throw out either really cheap, or for free.

Just my $.02

 

[atsorrento]

This is flipping awesome! :rockin: You should get a great harvest. I'm looking at raising mine now. Thanks for posting the pics!!!

 

[Turdhammer]

Classic example of "if it's worth doin', it's worth overdoin'."

Kudos brother!!