This post has been brought to you by the letter A.

This is my attempt at a hops trellis. The general idea (two A-frames) was suggested by my father in law Leslie Goode. It beat out a few other designs because in the end it was the cheapest (and probably easiest with my skill set) .

The whole endeavor was put into overdrive as our Nugget started growing several inches per day. At the moment, our Nugget has a mere six more inches of rope remaining on our temporary bamboo/rope trellis (seen in the background).

Hops grow quite tall, but it appears that I might've outdone myself. While building it, both Joanna and my mother in law Anne independently asked "How are you going to raise it?" I brushed off their doubts until I put the first A-frame vertical.... Now I see their point. I think I might sever the bottom half into two 4-foot 2x4's, and raise it 4 feet at a time.

A word of caution for all you trellis builders: figure out in advance how you'll pick your hops flowers when they bloom. I'm tossing ideas around, but at the moment, since I have no 15-foot ladder, I suspect I'll disassemble the trellis. If I had a do-over, I'd probably have built it half as tall for the first year's growth.