Picture of new Hoop Buildings

16 years ago

Here is my versions of a high tunnel. Thanks for all the information about them.

I know I did a few things different. They are not very long. I was limited on funds and I don't have a very big market to sell at. I didn't want to over produce and have no where to sell it.

The bigger building is 12'2" by 18' 2" It is made out of 1" PVC pipe with a 6 mil covering. The end has two storm windows, love the freecycle sites, the same size as the one you see. I can easily open and close them. I can also remove the glass later in the spring. The corners are set in the ground 18" and there are 1 by 8 side boards. They are not treated. The wood was free, it was in a building when we moved here 5 years ago. I know the sides don't open up, but with the wind on top of this hill and the shortness of the building, I hope it will be ok. Time will tell. I am planting tomatoes and a few bell peppers in it. The tomatoes will be going out this Wednesday.

The smaller one is 8' 6" by 12". It is three cattle panels put together. I built it because I had the three panels sitting and not doing anything. It only cost me $18 for plastic and my time. I am going to grow cucumbers in it this spring. If they get too out of control, I will pull the plastic and let them grow on the cattle panels for an additional trellis. I am planning on starting cucs this week and plant out in 2-3 weeks.

I hope your garden is going great!

Here is a picture of my hoop buildings.

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Comments (9)

momamamo
16 years ago
They're beautiful. Best of luck.
plant-one-on-me
16 years ago
Thanks for the pictures. I was just pricing the material to make a small one for my back yard. I think I can do it for under $20.
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The bigger the plastic-covered structure, the greater the risk of disaster in my experience. I've been tending a 15-foot low tunnel all winter, and I will be so glad to fold that sucker up in a few weeks! Right now, when it's cold one day and warm the next, with lots of wind from every direction, I do better with good old milk carton cloches or plastic hot caps, but then I'm not trying to grow tomatoes two months ahead of schedule. One extra month of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi, and assorted salad greens are my payoff, plus I'll gain enough time to follow those guys with a second planting of something. Otherwise, the fight against wind and weather wouldn't be worth the trouble. Here is a link that might be useful: my website
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Well we made it through last night. It wasn't as cold as earlier predicted. It was 35 on Thursday night. I did cover everything up and turned on my additional heat. I went out this morning a 6:00 and it was 44 degrees in the building. I was kind of shocked. We had a strong 30-40 mph winds all night long. Today it is only suppose to get to 45 for a high. I left everything covered and closed up. I am worried about this weekend. I have seen 3 different forecast. One has us in the 27-30 range for lows and 50's for highs and a chance of snow. Another one has us in 34-37 for lows and 55 for highs. I guess I am going to plan for the lowest and hope for the highest! Tom- I have used milk jugs before, but I have another system that works the same. I use 4 inch pvc drain pipe cut into 6-8 inch lengths. I plant the plants and then put them around them. If there is a chance of cold, I cut the bottom off of 2 liter bottles and slip them over the PVC pipe. It is like a mini greenhouse. One year I planted out and the next week we had one 32-34 degree night and I spend 2 hours cutting and slipping close to a hundred bottles over pipes. It did get that cold during the night, and everything survived.
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Comments (4)
eric- it is a diy, we are using 20 ft pvc bows coupled with a 4' piece. the only problem with compensating for the grade by using longer bows is that our plastic, which was salvaged, is only wide enough for 25' long bows. we were planning on installing the footers completely level, which would elevate them significantly on the low side. that's why we figured a skirt wall might work to fill up the space underneath. we have very limited space, so the only way to orient the house thankfully is the way it should go, east to west. jay- we definitely plan on building raised beds inside because this house is first and foremost for growing winter greens. we actually plan on running radiant heat under the beds and creating little cold frames within the larger cold frame. i see what you did with your house and it looks good. it appears that your long sides are level and just your enwalls are off. in our case, the grade slopes both on the long wall and the endwall, and there is no other way for us to orient the house. the only reason we don't want to simply build the footers parallel to the grade is because since it is so far off, we don't want to get into issues having an endwall that is not square. we just finished repairing a hoop house for someone which was not built square to begin with, and it made the repairs take three times as long because we were constantly having to compensate for nothing actually lining up. putting in a door frame on an endwall that was about a foot unsquare was pretty tricky and we just deduced that square and level is the way to go to start from scratch. thanks for the input, i'll post some pictures once we get this thing up. hopefully the weather holds out for us this weekend.
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Frame of New Hoop Building
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Comments (16)
I'll second your reply on the untreated plastic. You would be lucky to even get 3 mo. before it begins to break apart. Treated regular 6 mil greenhouse film could last much longer than the suggested 4 yr, I had a double layer on a small greenhouse that lasted 14 yr. Get electric in there with a woodstove. Today I don't know what I'd do with a few hundred tomato plants in my greenhouse and the sun making it 100F inside with outside air temp at 28F. By leaving the exhaust fan off and circ fan running with a door cracked I can keep plants right around 80F. But I better go check on them again soon. By the way,Jrslick, had anyone told you that you need to paint the PVC? Bare PVC supposedly gives off gases that will breakdown the film in contact with it. Reading the post on the Lowes plastic made me think of that. I use the wirelock, probably even more than I should. I installed it on the 2nd arch from the ends as a means of extending roll-up side useful life and also installed it on the inside of my smallest GH on one side so I could drape a film curtain to the ground on an area that doesn't have a bubblewrap inner film layer. I just think you will like the wirelock onece you try it. But even with the wirelock on the end arches it still helps to keep the film extending over the edges from flapping in the wind. I've tried screwed firring strips, batten tape and yesterday I attached a section just by stapling through a section of used driptape over the film edge. Much depends on what type of material you are using for your endwalls. Wow, this thread almost belongs in the GH&Struc group. But there is little doubt that other than flowers, tomatoes are the most profitable crop for greenhouses.
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tcstoehr
16 years ago
Man... I would love to have just the little one. Are you gonna take 'em down after the weather warms? If that's regular sheet plastic, it will disintegrate in one summer.
Is it possible to get *too* hot in there? Would a 70 degree day toast your seedlings if nobody was there to open a door?
Color me jealous.
ruthieg__tx
16 years ago
They look fabulous to me...
preciousamy
16 years ago
I'm Jealous!!! I wish I had the space for something like that. You did awesome! Happy Gardening to you!
Keep Smiling, Amy :)
thisisme
16 years ago
They look great, I was thinking of doing something like that with 1oz shadecloth/ row cover for year round use here.
jrslick (North Central Kansas, Zone 5B)
Original Author
16 years ago
Tcstoehr- I did use plain plastic sheeting. It cost $18 and I had a $10 off coupon. For that price, I could not justify spending more on greenhouse film. It does get warm in there, fast! It was 60 degrees outside and mostly sunny last weekend. The thermometer read about 100 degrees! It felt really nice. I thought about getting out the beach lounge chair and take a nap! The soil is warming very well.

I will have to open the door and window on the other end to get good airflow. My wife is home 2 days a week and I will just have to open them up before I leave on the other 3 days. If that doesn't work, I will have to rope a friend into doing it for me.

I plan on leaving the plastic on, but who knows. Only the summer will tell. We had quarter to golfball size hail here last night, not very heavy, but the buildings are just fine!
bomber095
16 years ago
I used to have something very similar to this. Of the three hobbyhouses I have had to date, this one is by far the best quality and weatherproof. The other two were blown away by heavy winds. It cant get VERY hot in there; mine commonly exceeded 90Â° even when the air outside was only in the 70s. To correct this, I installed an exhaust fan hooked up to attic thermostat. Once the temperature inside got to 85Â°, the fan went on. I also rigged the sides so that we could get cross ventilation. Sadly, I dont have any pictures here at work, but I will try to find some at home.

Included is the link I bought it from. It is relatively cheep as hobby greenhouses go

Here is a link that might be useful: Hoop House
bobb_2002
16 years ago
They look great! Heat is your enemy, so consider getting a door for both ends. You might want to remove the plastic in a couple of months, then put it back up in September.

Bob B.

Picture of new Hoop Buildings

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momamamo

plant-one-on-me

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jrslick (North Central Kansas, Zone 5B)
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jrslick (North Central Kansas, Zone 5B)Original Author

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jrslick (North Central Kansas, Zone 5B)
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