Early summer hop report

It's been a while since I've checked in on my hops, and frankly I had almost just let them run wild until a few weeks ago. But as I looked out the window and saw them approaching the top of the 8 foot fence before it was even June, it became clear that I needed to give them some more room to run if they were going to have as good a showing as last year (or hopefully better after a year to build-out their roots). 

Instead of going across the lot canopy-style like I did last summer, I've tried a more traditional route of continuing to grow them upwards. I've strung a steel cable between a telephone pole and anchored it to my building. There are removable carabiners at each end of the cable, so that I'll be able to take them down for harvest. The one anchored to my building is accessible from my second story window, so I'm able to attach 6 other carabiners with polypropylene twine tails and then slide them across the cable before securing them to the fence. The polypropylene twine is rough enough that the hops can climb it, but strong enough against the elements that I'm hoping it doesn't decompose and break like the cheap twine from last year started to do. 

From right to left the varieties are Crystal, Horizon, Newport, Saaz, Santiam, and Super Alpha. While Super Alpha was one of the strongest last year, this year it hasn't fared as well; due to a combination of kids stomping all the plants early in the spring, then my lower fence pallet falling off and crushing it, and then as I discovered yesterday it appears that some animal has been eating/digging at the roots. There's still a couple shoots surviving and plenty of time to grow left this summer, so I'm hopeful that it'll come back still. Really all except Newport are still showing signs of the kids stomping them, as they all have re-corrected upwards after being pulled to the right. Because of this lean and early damage, I really haven't pruned back the small shoots like I did last season to let the bigger ones take over an flourish. I've got a feeling that they'll all hit the top of my twine by mid-summer pretty easily. Most major hop growers make their lines 30-40 feet high and mine is probably closer to 20 feet at this point.