Extend the growing season with an easy hoop house

I live in downtown Riverhead on a small lot, less than a quarter-acre that includes the house, driveway and two-car garage. I have limited space for gardening but I tucked in five 4’x 8’ garden beds in the backyard, two 4’x 8’ garden beds in the side yard, and one 4’x 10’ bed in River and Roots Community Garden. These beds are dedicated to growing vegetables. With this small garden I am able to grow the majority of my family’s vegetables spring, summer, and fall.

One way to get more from a small space (or a large one) is to use season extending techniques like hoop houses and cold frames. They are mini-greenhouses, trapping the sun’s rays and converting them to heat. They help warm the soil and air temperature allowing you to grow plants that would succumb to the outside weather.

A homemade hoop house is very easy and inexpensive to make. Here is a 4’x 8’ bed in which I sunk one foot of a ten foot PVC pipe, bent it across the bed, and inserted the other into the opposite side of the bed.

Then I used some plastic sheeting purchased from a home improvement store to cover the hoops. You can purchase greenhouse plastic from a garden supply shop but it is very expensive.

Make sure that it hangs over the bed enough to lay flat on the ground.

Use some bricks to hold down the plastic and admire your new hoop house.

Once the soil and air temperature warm up in the hoop house you can plant cool weather vegetable seeds or plant seedlings that are started indoors. Sprinkle some lettuce and spinach seeds which germinate between 40⁰F and 75⁰F so you will know if your soil temperature is at least over 40⁰F. Your seed packet may have a more definitive range. The cabbage family likes to germinate in warm temperatures and grow in cool temperatures so start them indoors and transplant into the hoop house.

Watch the temperature and moisture levels. Hot temperatures can kill plants or cause them to bolt making them bitter. I use an indoor weather station with a remote sensor that I place in the cold frame. It radios the temperature in the cold frame to the monitor in the house and when  temperature starts to climb I can hustle outside and open up a side of the plastic.

This week I’ll sprinkle some lettuce and spinach in the hoop house and I’ll start broccoli and cabbage in the house. Vegetable seeds can be found locally at places like Griffing Hardware and Talmage Agway, which has an especially large selection  this year, and seed starting soil and pots if you are ready to get started. If you would like to learn more about season extending techniques read “Four Season Harvest” by Eliot Coleman.

Amy Davidson is a resident of downtown Riverhead and co-founder of River and Roots Community Garden. She has been a backyard gardener for 15 years. When she is not in the garden she is herding seven chickens, two dogs, two cats, two kids and one very patient husband.