Hoop Houses!

The learning curve in gardening is pretty severe- I feel like I was in elementary school last year and now I'm taking the SAT's. My ONE hoop house last winter/spring season was a learning experience.

 The plastic was too thin and the sheet needed to be cut but I was too lazy to go inside and get scissors so it flapped all over and got dirty pooling water and goo. 

The hoops weren't high enough which meant that in the spring when it was even a little warm it would be blazing in the hoop house with not enough air circulating above the seedlings and plants. I scorched many a seedling.

This time around improvements were made- we went with a 6mm thick white plastic that's pretty rigid and resembles wrapping paper vs the flowing thin, clear plastic from last year.

We also lengthened the hoop tubing so it sits taller overall.

All materials were bought at Home Depot- our home away from home where I now have Rainman like abilities in that I can tell you what aisle to go to for just about anything.

The tubing is sold as a coil- we cut it with heavy duty tree pruning clippers. Here's a close up of the details: 

 
We hammer shim-like pieces of wood into the ground and force the tubing onto them.

Ms. Jo, the farm cat, approves of the new construction.

I'm covering 4 beds for the winter and keeping materials to start a 5th and 6th for spring seedlings. The winter hoops are protecting lettuces like Arugula, Leafy green, Romaine and other cold hardy things like Cilantro and Dill.

The bed above can be credited to my patented "Lazy Gardener" technique of letting the lettuce bolt and throw it's seeds all over so that the bed repopulates itself before fall. Lazy...and brilliant!

Most of the other beds have room in them so over the next few weeks I'm going to try and start a few things that do well in the cold like carrots and beets.

We'll see how it goes!