Building Your DIY Hoop House

Our hoop house greenhouse is one of my favorite places to go when it is cold and wet out in the Pacific North West. It is a peaceful little oasis where I can garden while listening to the rain, and best of all… where I can grow food for my family without getting too soaked.

We have had our original hoop house for 11 years now, and it has helped us learn so many things about gardening in a greenhouse: how to build with PVC, how to find the right weight of greenhouse plastic, how to extend our growing season, and what exactly to grow in a greenhouse. 

A hoop house is an effective and affordable alternative to a traditional greenhouse. And with the right tools, you can build your own DIY hoop house greenhouse and enjoy all the benefits that come with it! Today, we will be talking about our own experience gardening in a greenhouse, as well as sharing the steps for how you can build your own.

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What is a Hoop House?

Hoop houses are structures in which you can grow vegetables, fruits, and botanicals. They are similar to a traditional greenhouse, but what makes them unique is how they are built with arched hoops. These hoops are typically made from materials like PVC pipe or metal. They are then covered with a clear plastic made especially for greenhouses that allows sunlight to get in while also trapping the warmth inside.

By trapping solar energy, hoop houses provide a controlled environment for plants to thrive! A warmer and more protective environment makes it a suitable growing environment for various vegetables, fruits, and botanicals, no matter the season. By the way, be sure to check out our video tour for a rundown of the different crops we grow throughout the year!

Here on the farm, our homemade greenhouse has helped us navigate a number of issues. For starters, we have clay soil that can sometimes get super muddy or completely dried up during certain parts of the year, making it difficult to plant anything. Building this structure and filling it with handmade wooden raised garden beds has been a great workaround. It has allowed us to keep growing and harvesting without any need to worry.

Is a hoop house the same as a poly tunnel?

Yes, hoop houses and poly tunnels are the same thing. The arched hoop shape of this structure makes it look like a tunnel, and the material that is usually used for the covering is polyethylene plastic. Take the “poly” from polyethylene and put it together with the tunnel shape, and the result is –– yep, you guessed it, a poly tunnel!

Reasons to Build a Hoop House Green House

• Save money: Compared to a traditional greenhouse, which can cost thousands of dollars to build, these arched greenhouses are far more affordable. The materials that you will need to build your own poly tunnel are generally less expensive.

• Year-round gardening: You can rotate through different crops throughout the year based on the season. The warmer, contained area allows many crops to grow to their full potential. Hoop houses are especially helpful in colder climates where crops like tomatoes and peppers do not thrive as easily. 

• Protect against harsh weather: Just like a regular greenhouse, hoop houses provide protection from harsh weather conditions like heavy rainfall or hail. This little bit of extra support can make a huge difference in the lifespan and quality of your fruits and vegetables. Plus, you can garden even on rainy days.

• Extend your growing season: In the spring, the controlled temperature inside your tunnel greenhouse will allow you to plant seeds sooner than you would be able to if planting outside. Since it is warm inside, you won’t need to wait for the cold to pass. On the other hand, during the fall, the warmth will hold out too. This will allow you to harvest crops later than if they were planted outside. 

• Store food: Our greenhouse is a safe place to store our food without taking up extra space in the refrigerator. For example, we can keep growing lettuce or kale until we have a need to cut and consume it.

Pro Tips for Hoop Houses

While we love our little greenhouse garden, there have been some challenges that we have had to embrace and find solutions for. In our tour video, we share a few challenges, including these: 

• Pests: The lack of ventilation inside a hoop house can sometimes lead to issues with pests. We learned that our chickens could help us here! We let them run around inside when we are between seasons, and they are a huge help with this issue.

• Mold: Without constant airflow, this type of environment could easily get moldy. To work around this, we try to keep things as cool as possible with the doors and making sure we clean out old dead plants and give live plants plenty of air and ventilation as well as spacing. 

How to Build a DIY Hoop House

Building your own greenhouse is worth the effort. There is something truly special about DIY-ing your garden and bringing it to life exactly how you want to! We have enjoyed building two hoop houses: a 40’ by 12’ house on our property and another one for the Farmer’s brother. 

Now, we want to share with you a list of materials and all the steps you can take to get started with your own. Be sure to check out the full video to follow along with this step-by-step guide.

Tools needed

• PVC pipe (for the frame)
• PVC pipe clamps (to support the hoop ends)
• Heavy-duty plastic greenhouse sheeting (UV-rated is best)
• Zip ties and a coupler (to join the PVC pipes together)
• Reclaimed wood (to build the ends)
• Screws (to secure the wood ends and plastic covering)
• Chicken wire (optional for an additional doorway frame)

Step 1: Lay out the frame

We started our building process by leveling out some ground space and laying out raised garden boxes in the area that would become the inside area. The outer edges of these wooden raised garden boxes serve as our frame. Make sure that your frame is even, square, and level.

Step 2: Add the hoops

We use PVC pipe holders for support at the bottom of each arch and 10’ pieces of PVC pipe to build the arches. In our greenhouse, each arch is 2’ apart, and a center pole is zip-tied to the arches to hold them steady.

Step 3: Build the ends

Each end of our structure was built with reclaimed wood and secured with screws. When you build the front end, make sure to leave space for a door.

Step 4: Add the door

Adding a door to our greenhouse was super important to us as we needed to provide some form of ventilation. We built our door with wood and plastic covering, and also added a frame with chicken wire so that we could leave the door open but keep cats and chickens out. 

Step 5: Cover with plastic

Here is the final and most important step! Covering your structure with plastic will protect your plants while also creating an environment that maintains a stable temperature. We used a roll of 100’ by 20’ UV-rated greenhouse plastic. After draping it over the arches, we secured it with screws.

Hoop House Frequently Asked Questions

How long will a poly tunnel last?

With proper care, your tunnel structure can last for many years, even longer than a decade. We have been blessed to have ours for 11 years, and it is still in great condition. The lifespan will depend on many factors, including weather and the quality of materials used to build it. Along with required maintenance like green house plastic replacement every 3-4 years.

How big should a hoop house greenhouse be?

The size of your hoop house will depend on how much space you have and what you want to grow. Our greenhouse is 40 feet long, but the length can vary based on what needs, space, and materials you are working with.

How do you maintain hoop houses?

We recommend checking on your structure’s stability after any extreme weather like wind or heavy rain. You will need to replace the covering if it begins to wear out over time. To keep your veggies, fruits and botanicals healthy, it is also important to maintain proper ventilation and keep the inside of the greenhouse clean.

My Favorite Place to Garden Year Round

A greenhouse hoop house is an effective and affordable place to grow your favorite crops. Building this DIY structure means that you will have a warmer more controlled gardening environment where your plants can thrive and be protected from any weather conditions that are less than ideal. I love that I can plant cold hardy crops in the late fall and have them all the way through the winter. My favorites are spinach, chard and kale along with tomatoes into November! What would you grow in your hoop house greenhouse if you had one? 

If you enjoy DIY projects like building this greenhouse, be sure to check out our FREE Ebook for building raised garden beds –– they will make the perfect addition to your garden.

Read On For More Gardening Tips and Hacks

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• Most Affordable and Productive Medicinal Plants to Grow
• Companion Planting Chart for Herbs