Our Hoop House

Nathanial breaking ground, getting the site a bit more level. Also tilling for inside hoop house planting.

 When we started thinking about building a hoop house, we spent a lot of time on the internet just looking at pictures, viewing plans and seeing how other folks put together their season extender. I was surprised that there wasn't tons to view, probably because it is such an easy and relatively cheap project everyone must know what to do, right?
Well, here is our contribution to the collection of Hoop House How-tos.

For a 12' x 60' PVC Hoop house this is our set-up cost (to date):
42- 1''x10' PVC (sch 40) [Menards]   ~ $84.00
2 pkg(10 cnt)- 1'' coupling [Menards] ~ $5.38
1-100' x 24' roll polyethylene 6 mil plastic [Wayfair.com]~ $120.00
A generous handful of pull ties [$7.00?]
34- 2' pieces 1-1/2" and 1-1/4" galvanized [recycled stuff] (on the 1-1/4" pipe I had to drill the burr out of the ID of the pipe for the 1" PVC to fit)
8- 2x4x8 treated boards (ours from old canning jar shelves from 10 years ago)
2- 4'x8'x 3/8 plywood for doors
4- hinges (taken from old projects)

After squaring up the site, Bryon drove the (1-1/2" and 1-1/4") galvanized pipe 1' into the ground every 4'. If you would want a more permanent structure I would recommend at least 2' of pipe drove in the ground and time taken to drive them in square, as this will help to have your hoops uniform. This extra foot length above ground gives so much more room at the walls, and I was able to till quite closely to the edge, being careful that the tiller didn't brush against the wall and melt the plastic!  The boys then connected the lengths of PVC together with the couplings (tightly fit together -not glued) and we set the ends into the galvanized pipe about 6''. With the ground being so out of level we decided that it wasn't necessary to worry about the hoops exactly.

With all the hoops in place and adjusted (eyeballed) the next step was to set the ridge pole. We continued with lengths of PVC connected with couplings. Bryon drilled holes through the pipe every 4' and used pull ties (2 per hole) to fasten down the ridge pole to the hoops. Then it was time for the plastic! That happened a lot smoother than I thought, sliding over the hoops and getting it basically even, using the fold seams in the plastic to keep on track.

We had plenty of help with all the boys and Abigail was inside putting supper together.

What was recommended to hold the sides down was to bury the plastic. We decided not to kill ourselves yet by digging through all the roots to get enough soil to cover the and just use logs from the nearby woodpile instead. It's been up for a bit and we have experienced already why this isn't the best plan. I had to open the doors the other day, it was so hot inside, but the day was extremely windy (tree loosing weather!). The wind tunnel proceeded to roll the logs right off the plastic! Other wise this is an ok temporary do.

Here is why the doors need to go up, and soon: our first uninvited guest!

Bryon is wrapping all the sharp edges of pipe with duct tape to keep them from wearing holes into the plastic. Should this happen, as it did for us, in setting up, we had to use duct tape to mend a rip (tape inside and out).








Now for a set of doors. This is just how we did it. I'm not sure that there is a right or wrong way, just as long as you can get in and out with out a fight! To attach the plastic to the door framing , we tugged (this took two big people) the plastic taut and wrapped the ends around boards in a this-way-that-way fashion. This part took guess work and just making it happen, keeping the strain off the plastic to help from tearing. The triangular corners were stapled in separately. I like these nifty slide and lock door handles!

I was really proud how well it survived this wild hail storm we had, just a day after the hoop house was completed.

Now, we're ready for action!

*UPDATE*
Anyone who is actually planning on building this please read the update to properly complete your project!

And then enjoy the spring rain and shine!

Linking Up this week at the Natural Mothers Network -Seasonal Sunday #10
and Homestead Barn Hop #56