With a good helper, and a great machine, this went rather well!

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Perhaps it is a bit of overkill, but I want to have this last a while if it works. You may remember that a couple weeks ago I was starting to get this set up. Now, some of the hops are planted and my experiment has officially begun!

DIGGING WORKS BETTER THIS WAY

With my chain already up in the trees, it was time to get the hops plants in the ground. I had begun to dig a hole a while back with a shovel, but then I thought it would be time to work smarter and use one of the resources that I had available. This front-end loader with the backhoe attachment sure does come in handy.

If you notice the buckets in the forefront of the picture, you'll see that the hops are ready to be planted. They are waking up for the year and are eager to grow this season. It is amazing how well they have done the past couple years in these five gallon buckets, and I am pleased to now be able to release them into the wild!

Since we have a high level of rock and clay in the "soil" here, the backhoe attachment saved a lot of time in digging these holes. Not only was it much easier, I was able to go much deeper too. This helps, because although the rhizomes do not need to be buried this deep, having deeper holes allows me to loosen the soil beneath the plants and add organic material to enrich the soil.

Obviously, these were some large holes! Check out how big this one is compared to Monster Truck! Trust me, I would not have made one this big by hand, so I am glad that the machine encouraged me to!

TIME TO PLANT

As I mentioned earlier, the first step for me was to enrich the soil and add some soil amendments. Since I have a lot of rabbit manure on hand, that is what I started with. This will create a rich source of fertilizer deep beneath the plants, so as the roots grow, they will have plenty to feed the plant with. I also mixed in some compost, alternating layers of rabbit manure, clay, and compost.

This photo shows how root-bound the hops plants had become. They are still alive and well, but they were ready to be able to spread out and growing on their own, without restrictions. At least they were easy to remove from the buckets and replant.

Beneath the chain and somewhat South from it, we planted our first row of hops. The larger root-bound ones were planted as is, while smaller ones were spaced out and placed in-between the others. With the loose soil beneath them full of compost and rabbit manure, the roots should have plenty of room to spread out beneath the surface of the earth.

NOW FOR THE SUPPORT

Once the plants were in place, I moved the front-end loader beneath the chain. A ladder could have probably been use as well, but I think that this was a better option, and I did not have a ladder at the moment.

Here is my helper Monster Truck the Pepper bringing over some wire. It is a heavy roll, but not beyond his capabilities, so he's pleased to help out where he can.

For the next step in the process we gathered the wire, some sections of angle iron, and some snips. The wire was left over from another project, and the angle iron was scrap that I was re-purposing. I like to reuse old and discarded items whenever possible, so this was one more opportunity.

By standing on top of the front-end loader, I was able to reach the chain and pull the wires through. We pounded the angle iron into the earth and secured the wire to it. By placing the hops to the South of where the chain is located, the hops bines will be able to grow up the wire to the chain without blocking their own sun.

Hopefully this will just be one green wall of hops bines and cones by the end of the season. Again, this is just an experiment for us, but I am hopeful about the results. Either way, I'll keep you posted. So far, it looks like it could be a winner!

As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:

proof-of-progress-and-a-little-helper

Until next time…

GIF provided by @anzirpasai

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