Our zone is 8A. We have mild temperatures in the winter and endless sun in the summer. But since we live in the extreme northwest of the U.S. and in a maritime climate, it’s been a challenge to generate enough heat for our figs and mulberries.
Our initial solution was to make an open-top warming area with plastic on four sides. But that only gave us about +5 to +15 degrees depending on the wind.
A couple of weeks ago we finally put up a hoophouse using the Johnny Seeds’ hoop bender along with their off-the-shelf materials calculator and list. I’m not much of a handyman, but the instructions were pretty good. It all went in great and even survived a storm with 40+mph winds yesterday.
The Moraceae family members are sharing their new home and seem to be very thankful… they are still growing like weeds. Hard to believe they were all just cuttings at the beginning of this year.
Happy to answer any questions about putting up the hoophouse.
Yesterday’s high wind was the true San Juan test!! Surviving that means you’re fine with wild winter storms. I’m impressed.
On Guemes Island I have the same dilemma - moderate winter temps but not enough summer heat. EMT pipe with plastic covering is definitely the way to go. I, too, went out to check this am and everything still standing.
I use pipe connectors and overlapped Solexx but I think pipe bending would be cheaper and require less pipe cutting. I think I want to try it!! What is your plastic covering? Is your pipe 1"? What length? For base did you pipe clamp tubing to wood 4x4s and/or smaller pipe driven into the ground?
I’ve overwintered figs, Lisbon lemon and Hamlin orange with Christmas lights sets on a thermostat. In the summer it’s the tomato /pepper house.
Can’t have enough of these structures!!
but Every way I build a few more for my zone pushing habit.
That’s great! Thanks for sharing. You’re set-up looks super.
I’m not sure if we’ll leave ours up all winter but it looks like it will be easy to slide the plastic back over the hoops in the spring.
The plastic is 6mil tufflite IV. The hoops are 2ea 10ft chain-link top rail. The posts are 8 ft chain-link posts cut in half. The base would have only been posts driven into the ground but there’s a reason our our ISP is called Rock Island. So when driving our posts we hit rock on about 30% of them. We just decided to cut them off level and secure them with a wood base along the side… Here’s some construction photos…
This is mine that I build couple years ago! It’s been great to have it, we have used to extend the season and also for head start on figs and other fruit trees!
