Fall Workshops
Stretching the Season: Learn How to Build a Hoop House

Oklahoma Producer Grant recipients Tod and Jamie Hanley of Trebuchet Gardens in Norman hosted one of the Kerr Center’s most popular workshops of 2008, explaining and demonstrating their easy, low-cost method of hoop house construction.

This fall the Hanleys will repeat their workshop at Poteau and near Stratford (see left column).

In order for folks to have a true hands-on experience, the number of participants will be limited at these free workshops. Early registration is strongly encouraged.

Hoop houses are greenhouses without any source of heat other than the sun.  Designs vary, but the basic elements are a row of curved supports, or hoops, covered with a sheet of clear plastic. 

Hoop houses are an important tool for season extension, allowing warm-season crops to be grown earlier and later in the season, and permitting some cool-season crops to thrive all winter long.

The Hanleys’ work with season extension in hoop houses won them a 2007 Oklahoma Producer Grant from the Kerr Center.

Over time, they’ve developed a method of construction that results in a 17’ x 100’ hoop house that stands up to wild Oklahoma weather better than some commercial versions.  As of last year, the total cost of materials was still coming in at under $1,000.

One of the key cost-cutting innovations of the Hanleys’ hoop house design is a homemade tool that they use to bend straight metal tubing to form the hoops, instead of paying much more for pre-formed hoops.

Plans for the bender are available here, as part of a fully illustrated guide to the Hanleys’ hoop house construction methods (see sidebar).

They also eliminate purlins (the rigid bars that run perpendicular to the hoops in some designs), using only ropes and the plastic cover to stabilize the otherwise free-standing hoops.

That same approach also takes the work out of ventilating the hoop house.  With hoop houses, ventilation is often a daily chore even in cold weather, to prevent crops inside from overheating. 

In the Hanleys’ design, the tension in the ropes keeps the plastic cover in place at any height, allowing users to ventilate the hoop house simply by tugging up on the edges of the plastic.

The Hanleys’ method is quick as well as inexpensive.  At last year’s workshop, with help from workshop participants, the entire house went up in less than three hours. Just the pair, though, can easily manage the job by themselves.