A mini hoop house is a very inexpensive method for extending your gardening season.
Using a Hoop House in winter I have had less success overwintering crops in mini hoop houses. The crops I planted lasted well into December but didn’t hold up as well as the cold frame crops beyond that.
The Hoop House in January
Hoop Houses are cheap!
The main advantage of a hoop house is the cost. I built two mini hoop houses to cover some 4×8 raised beds. The total cost of both hoops was less than $30.00.
Last fall I filmed a quick YouTube video about using a Hoop House in your garden. You can watch it below:
Hoop House Basics
Mini hoop houses are really very simple structures. I simply used 4- 10-foot pieces of ½ inch PVC pipe. I bent them into hoops pushed them into the ground and added some screws to keep them upright.
I then added a couple of pieces of scrap wood as a ridge pole. You could also use PVC as a ridge pole. If you don’t have a raised bed to cover, you could use 2-foot pieces of rebar pounded a foot into the ground to secure your PVC poles. Another option would be to use a metal electrical conduit. This will be more durable and wind-resistant but it’s a little more expensive and needs to be bent into shape with a special tool.
Choosing a Cover
You then just need to cover the hoop with some 6 mil plastic. If you really want to get fancy you could buy greenhouse-quality plastic, but for the cost, I think the 6 mil does just fine. The area where my hoops are located doesn’t have a lot of protection from the wind so I chose a fairly secure system to attach the plastic to so it will keep it from blowing around.
But I know people who have been able to get away with covering the hoops and then just using rope or bungee cords to hold the plastic in place. You just need to be sure to allow for access. It needs to be fairly easy to get into the crops.
High Hoop House
I also wanted to mention larger structures. High hoops are the focus of the book “The Winter Harvest Handbook” by Elliot Coleman. He spends a lot of time talking about the commercial application of large hoop structures. The ones he talks about are huge, many 30 or 40 feet wide by 100 or more feet long. Most gardeners don’t have room for this type of hoop house. But if you have space, you can build a small version of a hoop house that gives you tons of room for winter crops. The best part about these is you can walk inside!
One of my favorite blogs is written by Ali at henbogle.com. She and her husband have built a beautiful high hoop house in their Maine garden. I’ve included some pictures below to give you an idea of what it is like. Please keep in mind that these pictures belong to Ali at henbogle.com and she was very generous to let me use a few. Please do not copy or download these pictures.
As you can see it is a great little hoop house. The cost of this type of structure is really not too bad. I would imagine you could build one for quite a bit less than $750.00 if you did the work yourself. If you would like to learn more about the henbogle.com hoop house please visit Ali’s blog at henbogle.com. She has a whole section of her site dedicated to the hoop house, including a bunch of pictures of the construction.
Next time we will discuss how to manage your winter crops.
Cold Frame Construction – Winter Gardening Series #6
Its fascinating how different climates throw up such different challenges. I have no idea how I would cope with all that snow….I like your hoop houses though and I’m thinking I could use something similar to protect my more tropical crops in our not very tropical winters…
Yes, snow does make for some extra challenges for year round gardening. I’m very jealous of those of you in warmer climates, I spent some time in southern California last January, people had beautiful crops of lettuce, kale, broccoli and other cool weather crops growing out in the open in their gardens. At the same time my main garden was a frozen wasteland. But I love where I live and wouldn’t trade it! Thanks for leaving a comment.
I use a mineral tub 3/4 full of soil and 5 or 6 holes near the bottom for lettuce and spinach. When it gets down below freezing I cover the tub with a 4 X 8 inch sheet of Plexiglas. If snow is on the way I cover the whole thing with a blanket. We had 6 inches of wet snow last Spring. I left the cover on it for a couple of days before I removed the it. The lettuce was fine and continued to give the two of us tasty lettuce until my raised garden lettuce was ready to pick. Location–Northwest Missouri.
Sounds like a great set up!!