First off, earlier this week I hung the cross supports on the 4×4 beams.  These were 1×6, 4 feet long with a cut made 10″ in leaving 2″.  This gives that nice finish seen below.

Next, I ran 3, 2X6 12′ pressure treated beams over the top to hold the slats that ran across the top of the trellis.

For the top, I bought 12 eight foot 1by 2 pieces of pressure treated wood.  I cut the pieces in half and made a piece of wood for a spacer so that they would be even. 

I painted the whole thing, which, as my wife informed me it would be, took a VERY long time to paint.  No matter, it’s done and it looks very good. 

I took some time to dig up the area in between my hops plant and in between the posts so that I can make the whole thing into a proper bed for my hops.  To make matters better, my father has two or three more hops plants in pots that he got from a friend waiting for me next weekend.

Some how this weekend I also managed to till and prep my garden, clean the garage, dig up the walkway to the gate removing all the roots and enjoy a few beers.  I am enjoying my Belgian that I think, while not a Belgian Dubbel, is a Belgian Strong Pale Ale.  Cheers.

I’ve decided to make some changes on my design and I am going to be doing something like this:

Special Thanks to Growing-Image.com for the idea

Mine will be a little wider – 4′ – and have three posts, but the idea is the same.  As I was looking around at how best to build one of these, I was really last as to the best way to make it look nice and have it tall enough to allow the hops enough room to grow.  This is nice because when it’s all built, the whole thing should be near 8 ft tall and 4ft wide so that the hops can grow up and over it.  Plus it should look really nice too.

Next up I am going to mount the cross beams onto the posts.  That will hopefully be tonight (weather permitting anyway).

Pictured below are the post markers for where my 4×4 posts went.  I purchased 3 8ft 4×4 posts of pressure treated wood for this project ($9 each).  I also had to pick up a special shovel for the project from Harbor Freight as the post hole digger was like $35 and I was not into spending that much on something I was only going to use once.

I used two 60lb bags of quickcrete to set the posts in place.  Each post hole was 18″ deep (Nick recommended 24″ and I was thinking 12″ so I split the difference) and after checking this morning, I think they will be plenty sturdy.  As you will note from the picture, I used two support stakes on each post and used a level to ensure they were straight both ways.

The post on the far right has a bow to it, but after messing around with it, I noticed that it will straighten out once I put the cross beam in.

The next step is to cut and secure the cross beam up to the three posts.  From there, I need to decide if I am going to connect this to the fence as I originally planned, or just make it a free standing trellis.  If I connect it to the fence, I just need to get one more  wood piece to run parallel to the fence and all the perpendicular pieces for the top.  We’ll see how things line up after the connection beam is in place…

Cheers.

Not to be out done by my toothless neighbors to the south, it’s time that I finally made a proper hops trellis.  With that in mind, I’ve decided on a design.  The picture above is a concept that I am going to use in my design, tonight I am going to make some measurements and get a list of items needed to make this happen.  I am not sure if I am going to be able to get to this right away, but perhaps I can set the three posts this weekend.

The idea is pretty simple, use my fence and the distance from where the hops are planted to set up a trellis the same height as the fence.  I am going to run a cross board parallel to the three posts (that will be positioned in relation to the hops) using the fence to as the opposing posts.  I will run a few cross beams between the newly set posts and the fence as a means of giving the hops something to grow on and that’s it!  I might run some wire around it for growing, but twine has been working well so I might just set up a yearly twine stringing.

I’m just in time since my hops are just starting to pop up so hopefully I can have this complete in the next few weeks.  I also still have a can of paint from last year’s fence painting so I’ll be able to make the whole thing match.

Good stuff.

Cheers.