Wirevise. Wish I had seen these before.

[GilaMinumBeer]

http://www.orchardvalleysupply.com/ovsstore/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=17

How nice are these? Not too expensive either.

 

[dontman]

Um . . . you mean the ability to start new threads? Seen it before.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Um . . . you mean the ability to start new threads? Seen it before.

Whoops. Fixed that for ya'.

 

[dontman]

Thanks for the link.

I will use this if I decide to keep growing hops. I'm really trying to decide whether I just want to dig up my rhizomes and toss em with the ridiculously low prices for hops these days.

I worry that if I let them grow they might overgrow sections of my yard eventually.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

I hear ya' bro. It's almost too danged frustrating. Between inclimate weather and the insects and all......

 

[david_42]

Yeah, I only got hops off of the Cascades this year. One out of nine plants and these are 3rd and 4th year plants. Seems like something different every year. And my trellis posts are falling down, as the hillside flows far more than would have believed possible.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

I am on my 3rd year. Fortunately my posts haven't moved but the line has lost so much tension that I have no more room on the eyebolt threads. I ordered 4 of these for myself and will put em in this fall after I take the plants down.

I am hoping that my re-junivation efforts will payback next year (with some agreeable weather) in spades. Looking through my yards I found several 2 almost 3 inch long cones on some plants. Others have been eaten alive by "invisible" caterpillars. I find maybe one or two a day and squarsh them to oblivion but, the rest are particularly deceptive.

Have you ever tried BT powder?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis

I think I am gonna use that next year. The caterpillars are my worst enemy to date.

 

[dontman]

This was my first year. I never expected much but when I planted them I was paying $6/ounce at HBS. Planting rhizomes then was a no-brainer. Now I am paying $.80 / ounce through HD and it is almost a no-brainer in the other direction. If I liked gardening that would be one thing . . .

 

[Bobby_M]

The thing with growing is that you have to be proactive, not reactive. The guys that were growing for fun all along said "what hop shortage". By the time you can replant in response to another problem, you're two years late again. It's better to just let them grow and keep cutting them down if you don't want them that year.

 

[dontman]

Yeah, true. It is not so much the plants that I could have a problem with anyway. It is the trellis. I did 12' this year and the bines were at the top by the beginning of June.

Regardless this is all idle speculation anyway. There is no way I'm pulling up an established root system. Free hops is free hops.

 

[Homercidal]

I'm thinking about planting some more hops. Some new varieties. So two years from now when HD is having a huge hops sale, I can buy the really weird ones that I don't have. Now that the neighbors willow trees have blown down, I have more land with lots of sun.

 

[Bobby_M]

I grow mostly for the strange looks I get from friends and neighbors.