I’m still messing with how I’ll grow mine too. I’ve got 20 plants if they all come up this year, none are in mounds. I transplanted 17 in September of last year, then this spring dug up one of those and split it into another batch of 3 more plants hopefully. To date I have 10 plants having sprouts ranging from 1 to 6 inches tall. I’m fairly confident that all of them will come up. All the plants are 6 to 7 feet apart, I have two different runs, one is 95 feet long and the other I haven’t measured but should be roughly 50 feet long. I set 4 poles on the run that is 95 feet long, its on a bit of a hill having a rise of about 4 feet from end to end so one end the pole is roughly 14 feet in the air while at the other end I put a larger diameter pole (double useage on it) which is only 10 feet in the air. (That pole is also going to be used to help support our grapes if the grape plants survived the transplant.)
I’m tossed on going to the top for my main top wire? I’m going to use high tensil wire. Harvesting at that height will be a bugger I’m sure and I know they’ll extend beyond that and hang down or tangle as well. I guess one nice thing is we have the opportunity to modify our trellis every year from our experiences.
I too am using them as a screen from the road. I’m even wondering how much insect problems I’ll have because they’ll catch a lot of dust coming off the road during the summer… :-\
