Since the greenhouse was getting kinda full, we decided to build a new hoop house over the weekend. This was actually a pretty simple process.
First, it’s important to determine where the house will go and measure the four corners of the structure. Once I had done this, I hammered 24 inch pieces of 1/2 inch rebar into the ground in those locations and tied a long piece of twine between them.
This provides a perfectly straight line for the 32 foot sides of the hoop house. Along this line, I hammered in another piece of rebar every 4 feet.
The next step was to put the hoops together. Each hoop is made of two pieces of 1 inch PVC electrical conduit.
Next, I attached each hoop to the ridge of the house. For this I used pipe clamps and wood screwed them into a long piece of 1×4 lumber every 4 feet to keep the hoops an even distance from one another.
It then took two of us to lift each hoop and slide it over the pieces of rebar sticking up out of the ground. This created the underlying structure of our hoop house.
The only thing left to do now was to pull the large sheet of greenhouse plastic over the hoops and stake down the corners. A little rope helps to hold it all in place. This makes a very functional hoop house that we will be able to take down and move when we are done using it. In the meantime, it is the perfect place to continue growing our vegetable starts.
