Easy to build PVC Cold Frame Hoop House is a mini greenhouse that allows you to grow salad greens and cold tolerant vegetables into the winter, and get a head start on early spring planting. This hoop house is more resistant to heavy snow than our previous versions, listed below.
This is version 3.0 of our cold frame hoop house. What I like about this one is that it’s a taller than our previous cold frames, so you could start to grow tall plants like kale or start sunflowers earlier in the spring.
A couple things to keep in mind while you’re building this hoop house, especially if you are using this on raised beds. You want this hoop house to fit just inside the walls of your raised bed. I made this mistake when I made my first hoop house, I didn’t measure how wide my raised bed was and the cold frame didn’t fit exactly. Experience has once again taught me something. The frame fits just inside the wooden sides of the raised bed and it doesn’t have to have a super tight seal with the soil, you do want some air exchange in and out. What the hoop house is doing is moderating temperature. When it gets really cold outside, it’s going to be cold in there but it will extend your growing season.
Consider planting some cold tolerant greens in August, I like a salad green mix that sold by Fedco seeds. They have a fall and winter lettuce greens mix and that’s worked really well for me.
One thing I did not mention in the video is that where the plastic meets the plywood ends of your hoop house, the plywood can cause the plastic to tear and so you might want to put something soft around the edge of the plywood. If you have some old garden hose you could split the garden hose open and run that along the edge of the plywood and that would go a long way toward making the plastic such that it wouldn’t rip.
For this 8′ x 4′ cold frame I used:
- Two 2×3 8′ long studs
Two 2×3 studs cut to 45″ long
One 1×2 8′ stud, you could also use a 2×2
4 metal angle iron brackets
3 pieces of 1/2″ Schedule 40 PVC cut to 6′ long
1 1/4″ and 1 5/8″ drywall screws
Two pieces of 4’x4′ thin plywood. You could also cut down a 4’x8′ piece.
3 or 4 mil plastic, i used a roll of 10′ x 25′, which is enough for two hoop houses.
Two thermatic vents, available here http://amzn.to/2Cg81fg
Staple gun
Using the angle brackets, build a 4′ x 8′ wood frame, make sure the shorter pieces of 2×3 wood (the 45″ pieces) are inside of the larger pieces, so the outside dimensions are 48″ x 96″
I cut the plywood ends to match the arc of the pvc hoops. Take one of the hoops and curve it into the wood frame at the end of the frame, and use this to sketch the arc on the plywood ends, it does not have to be perfect.
My hoop house cold frame gardening has been greatly influenced by Eliot Coleman and Niki Jabour.
Four-Season Harvest The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener
Watch all of our hoop house videos here.
alice
excellent project! I planted some lettuce seedlings that I started outside and some chard and celery and parsley in boxes- trying to grow them on my three season porch that faces south (thinking this might substitute as a hoop house – we’ll see how far we get.) I want to get that one book you recommended by Coleman the “Winter Harvest Handbook”. Interesting things to try and as food prices are starting to climb maybe even necessary. Thanks! 🙂
Tonia Moxley
Love this upgraded design, Eric. I’m going to build one of these for early spring planting. The strengthened infrastructure makes it a very cool thing. Looks like you could take off the plastic and take out the vents, and use it to grow things like beans that like to climb.
Thanks for the link to the vents, too.
Just one thing: I miss seeing you build stuff in the videos. I love that part, as you tend to do the same things I do — lots of “Ut-oh” moments. But those make the best stories!
Tonia
Mike
This is an awesome project, any way you could re upload the video please?
Jeffrey Asbeck
Great ideas! I’m gonna try both the PVC and the concrete reinforcing wire ones! Thanks!