{"id":2918,"date":"2020-04-21T13:55:25","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T18:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/?p=2918"},"modified":"2020-04-21T13:55:27","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T18:55:27","slug":"50-shade-hoop-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/?p=2918","title":{"rendered":"50% Shade Hoop House"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Initial Setup<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This year I hope to take a much harder swing at propagating cuttings, and to scale up my efforts, I’m bringing back the bones of the old hoop house I originally constructed 6 years ago. I’ll modify the design to provide shading from the sun rather than protection from cold. Instead of a clear plastic cover, I’ll use 50% shade cloth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had stored all of these water pipes in a bundle tucked into the corner of a shed, and when I pulled them out I had only minimal damage. A quick trip to the big box store with a mask over my face and I soon had all the parts I needed in my gloved hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked my wife, Kassy for help, and I was surprised how quick we got the basic structure in place. The frame consists of Schedule 40 1\/2″ piping, so the first step was gluing them all together. After that, we secured them to a treated 2×4 with exterior screws. I should note the original iteration of the design lacked glue, and I believe that was one of the shortcomings of the design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The raising of the hoop worked out better than I initially hooped. I asked Kassy to hold her foot down on one of the 2x4s while I picked up the center. I was able to slip between the pipes as I lifted, and when I started to lower it, I noticed it stayed in place really well. I must admit this was a really clever design mistake inherited from the original design. If you look closely at the place where the pipes connect to the 2×4 you will notice that they extend past it. When the structure was raised, they dug into the soil just enough to hold it into place. I really lucked out that time! The original hoop house had a 2×8 at the base, and I just re-used most of the pre-drilled holes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Basic Hoop Structure + Tin sides<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next up, I added two pieces of tin commonly used on metal roofs. You may be asking why? Well, the shade cloth I bought was 18′ X 12′ and the area I needed to cover was about 20′ x 12′. I also had a hunch that the metal would help stiffen the structure, again thinking about the last version that failed. Before attaching the metal I drove four boards about 3 feet into the ground on each corner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shade Cloth installed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The shade cloth was a breeze to add. We used zip ties to hold it in place while deciding what to do for the ends of the building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The only straight part of the picture is the pole in the center.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I chose the location of this hoop house because it was far out of sight of the house. I thought about leveling the soil with the tractor but I’ve learned all too well what sort of mess that would make. Freshly worked soil turns into a muddy mess that adds pounds of mud to your boots, not something I cared to venture into. I compromised by leaving the building on a fairly decent slope, which is only terribly noticeable when I leveled the support shown above. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I settled on using a tarp to block sunlight on the edges, and initially, I just folded over the excess so I could re-use the tarps later. After considering the number of snakes that we see in the yard and imagining how much they would love to hang out in a folded over tarp, I opted to trim off the excess!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Front side with a tarp door.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So there it is, a 50% shaded hoop house. In June I’ll stock this with hundreds, perhaps thousands of cuttings ranging from elderberries and blueberries to rhododendrons and azalea. I’ve already begun running water lines, and I have an automated sprinkling system that will be added next. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Two rhododendrons from last year’s cutting trials<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After finishing the hoop house, I decided to check on last year’s trails. I was having good luck till nearly the end of last summer when I thought all of my cuttings had died. I was quite surprised to see growth this spring on 14 of the cuttings even after I had given up on them!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year I hope to take a much harder swing at propagating cuttings, and to scale up my efforts, I’m bringing back the bones of the old hoop house I originally constructed 6 years ago. I’ll modify the design to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2918"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2925,"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2918\/revisions\/2925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/itfarmersblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}