My Homemade Hanley Hoop House

Start with 2 foot lengths of 5/8 rebar driven 18 inches into the ground.

For my house dimensions, it turned out that an angle of 60 degrees to the horizontal was appropriate. I figured this out by pulling a 20 ft. length of PVC pipe into an arc until the ends were 14 feet apart and then used a carpenter’s saw protractor to measure the angle between the rope and the pipe. Very high-tech. Although it wasn’t really necessary, I cobbled up a wooden jig to align the rebars at 60 degrees. It made me feel engineer-like.

The PVC pipes were 1 1/2 inch diameter and I spaced them 5 feet apart. From what I have read here and there, that should be close enough for good support. So far, so good.

After adding ropes and 6 mil greenhouse film, I had a hoop house.

I shoveled a few inches of soil out of the center path to get a little extra headroom, and laid out a couple of driplines.

Black plastic over the row,

followed by red plastic over half of the row, just as a little experiment, completed the tomato row prep.

60 tomato plants went in holes with a little bone meal added to each hole.

I closed in the far end, but not the near one yet. You can see the dahlias growing on the left side of the tunnel.

Hoping for good things. The wind blew some of the tomatoes over today, as I had the sides up for ventilation, so I guess it must be time to put in the trellis setup. Sounds like a project for this weekend.