low tunnel | Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Hoop houses or high tunnels are excellent season extenders. They can keep you family in fresh greens all year round or give you the earliest tomatoes in the neighborhood. Unfortunately they can be pricey. Here’s a few simple options for creating affordable hoop houses.

Garage Frame High Tunnel

One of the easiest options is to use an old garage or storage building frame. If you see one for cheap or free on craigslist or your local classifieds, scoop it up! These are perfect for making small high tunnels with the little effort it takes to frame in the ends and add a door and plastic. The example pictured above was picked up for free, has a free used door, scrap lumber was used to frame in the ends, and the plastic was clamped to the piping using small sections of PVC pipe with slits cut in them.

Conduit High Tunnel

If you like the idea of the storage building hoop house but can’t find a used one you might consider making your own from conduit. Conduit is relatively inexpensive and can be bent at home using a homemade frame.

Cattle Panel High Tunnel

Another option is to use cattle or hog panels as the main frame. The panels are bent over and staked at each end. Like the other hoops you’ll still want to frame up the end and add a door. These are also a nice option because they’re easy to dismantle and move even if you’re a one person garden operation.

Low Tunnels

If you find none of these options work for you or you just don’t need a high tunnel, try a low tunnel! For low tunnels all you need is some hoops to bend over a garden bed and plastic. The hoops can be made from conduit, PVC, or even flexible wood from your property (just make sure to shave/sand off any spots that might tear the plastic). If you have a traditional garden the hoops can just be shoved into the ground on either side of the bed. Alternatively for raised beds you can add holders like slightly larger sections of PVC to the side of the bed to slide the hoops in and out of for easy set up and removal. Those holders could also be be driven into the ground for the same purpose. These low tunnel hoops also double as a way to cover crops with shade cloth to keep them cool or protect them from insects.

Purchasing Plastic

There’s a few considerations to keep in mind whatever frame you choose. First even though the rest of your hoop may be cheap or free you do want to invest in good quality plastic. Cheap plastic will only cost you more in the long run when it needs frequent replacing. To find good plastic look for plastic that has a good UV rating (won’t deteriorate in the sun) and is fairly thick. If you live in a northern climate you’ll need to keep in mind that your plastic will have to stand up under snow loads. Most likely you’ll find good quality plastic must be sourced from an actual green house supplier.

You’ll also want to make sure you purchase enough plastic for your project. Note that even though some large hoop houses have solid ends, your hoop house will be more effective with plastic or another type of clear material on the ends. So don’t forget to take the ends into consideration when purchasing plastic. You should also be sure to order a bit extra to leave room for error.

Ventilation

Another feature you’ll want to consider on any type of greenhouse is a way to vent it. High and low tunnels will get hotter faster than you’d think. Being able to allow cool air in as needed is vital to prevent damage to plants. Good air circulation is also important to preventing fungus and disease. For high tunnels you may want to add doors and windows on each end or fashion sides that roll or fold up. On smaller hoop houses you can just make the lower part of the plastic sides easily detachable and fold it up and inward (if you fold it outward it will fill with rainwater). Obviously for low tunnels venting them is very easy because you can simply fold back the plastic but it is even more important.

Choosing a Site

Lastly it’s you’ll need to decided where you want to place your hoop house. It can be especially handy to have them close to the house in springtime when you’ll be spending a lot of time checking on and caring for seedlings. You’ll also want to ensure that one of the longer sides is facing south allowing the high tunnel as much sun as possible especially in the winter months.

Hoop houses do not have to be just for big farms! With a little effort you can create an affordable backyard hoop house even on a tiny property. Growing food in a high tunnel can help increase your year round self sufficiency and help you grow varieties that really like it hot and humid. Up your gardening game and start building!

By Ira Wallace

Fall and winter offer a second chance to grow all the delicious greens and wonderful roots we savor in spring. They’re even easier to grow, thanks to decreasing weed pressure and reduced need to water. Many winter greens, like kale, collards, and spinach, even taste sweeter in fall as they concentrate sugars to withstand colder temperatures.

Our garden is brimming with greens ready for harvest now, as well as younger plants that we won’t harvest until early spring when they will grow rapidly as the days begin to lengthen.

Elliot Coleman coined the term “Persephone Days” for the period when there is less than 10 hours a day of sunlight and plant growth slows to a halt. Typically November 21st through January 21st, or a little longer due of outside ground temperatures. So what you see in the garden now is what you get until early February for practical purposes, unless you are growing under cover in a greenhouse, cold frame or low tunnel.

With an extended drought and weeks of record breaking highs, 2016 was a really tough year for establishing our fall crops. In many cases we had to do a third succession planting to get the beds full of thriving plants. In the case of spinach and kale, our last and most successful sowing was in early October. For an idea of what and when we sow most years read our blog post on Summer Sowing: Continuous Harvest All Summer into Fall or look at our Southern Exposure Fall and Winter Growing Guide.

So let’s take a look at some of what we have green and growing in the garden on “Black Friday Weekend 2016”:

Kale, collards, and spinach are our largest plantings for winter greens because of their versatility in the kitchen and dependable winter hardiness. Because our earliest succession plantings had spotty germination we have a lot more plants from the later sowings. Luckily for us the unusually warm temperatures continued into November so we have nice full beds of Abundant Bloomsdale spinach and Lacinato Rainbow kale going into December. Fortunately half grown ”juvenile” plants often survive the winter and last longer into the spring. In addition to the heat and drought our collards were also attacked by grasshoppers in August so the remaining plants are smaller than usual at this time. Heirloom collards are survivors so I expect they will do well and start vigorous growth again in early spring.

We have already harvested many of our oriental greens for stir-frying and to make Kimchee, but our Tatsoi greens are still looking and tasting great. In winter we enjoy the shiny dark green leaves in salads, stir-frys and soups. One interesting thing with the spotty germination on some of our early sowings is how large the plants can get in fall and still be sweet and tender.

Another favorite green for us and many others in our region are Creasy Greens and their cousin from grower Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seeds in the Northwest, Belle Isle Cress. They are lightly spicy and crisp in winter. Take care as they will naturalize if left in the garden to produce seed.

Let’s not forget Arugula, another winter salad favorite.

We also grow a lot of winter lettuce. I especially like red varieties for the deep color they develop in winter. Outredgeous and the Wild Garden Lettuce mix are favorites that have been joined by the heirloom Crawford, a Texas winter salad Lettuce.

We still have some winter roots in the ground: carrots, beets, salsify, parsnip and winter radishes. We have potatoes and sweet potatoes in storage.

Maybe we can look at what we still have canned, dried, fermented and frozen sometime soon. Until then enjoy your garden.

Saving the Past for the Future

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Tag Archives: low tunnel

Easy, Affordable Hoop House Options

Fresh Greens to Harvest from Fall through Winter

Saving the Past for the Future