I don’t like to think of myself as a half-asser – just get the job done kind of guy, so I had all kinds of justifications on why I thought planting the endposts for the trellis system more or less verticle would work. My rows were way shorter than the rows in the books. My posts were bigger and planted nice and deep (3 feet). My earth anchors were strong and the black paint made them look even tougher. But when I began adding my trellis wire, I slowly discovered these justifications were a bunch of crap. My endposts were not doing their job. As I tighted the wires, the posts pulled in and the wires never seemed to tighten. So after completing three rows of loose wire, I finally came to the conclusion I needed to fix things.

I went back to the books. According to the experts, there were two options: lean the endposts back to a 60° angel or insert another post with horizontal post between (H post construction). The first option seemed a whole lot easier, and according to the books, H posts are recommended for rows longer than 100ft. Our rows are about 70ft on a good day. I also found sources suggesting the anchor wires should be doubled up, and they do indeed feel much stronger and tighter this way.

Digging behind the endposts is a little awkward, but it’s doable. The worst part of constructing this trellis system is the amount of time it takes. It takes me over an hour to complete a single row. Only six more rows to go.