hoop

The Hoop House Project

Growing Winter Greens without heat in Maine by use of a portable greenhouse and a worm farm

This project was made possible by the Interface Corporation

"We will honor the places where we do business by endeavoring to become the first name in industrial ecology,
a corporation that cherishes nature and restores the environment."

Our middle school students have taken the garden project to places we didn’t think possible, from becoming some of the top ribbon winners at the Common Ground Fair to bringing fresh produce they’ve chosen to grow into our cafeteria, the local soup kitchen and markets and most importantly into their own homes.

Many of our winter growing techniques are accomplished inside a state of the art greenhouse with an artificial heat source. This set-up is not practical or affordable for most homeowners and many farmers. Our dream was to build on current hoop house technology to develop a model, functioning hoop house that will be geared towards Maine winters. Our belief is that this model hoop house would be able to house enough solar heat to grow greens from October into summer without any artificial heat source. In other words we would heat our hoop house for free.

Our students tested this hypothesis last year by designing and building a hoop house in our garden. They conducted all of the research regarding the design, material cost and building requirements. The math, science, Language Arts, Industrial Arts and Economics teachers each took a part in this process connecting a lesson involving the hoop house with the Maine Learning Results. The following pictures detail the steps we took to complete our second hoophouse in the THMS Garden.

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Students lay out placement of the Hoop House after tilling up the cover drop of oats	Organic compost is added to the area	Compost trench around older hoop house is filled before continuing
Measuring the height of the arch	Making base by nailing together 2 by 6's then drilling 2" holes for base. Short pipe is pounded in to hold frame	Adding bolts for ridge pole
Assembling more hoops	Students measure pipe against template to keeep things exact	Measure twice, cut once
Just a practice cut with no power	Safety googles on before making cut. Use of speed square to keep line true	Lunch break in the greenhouse
Insert hoops into sleve	They fit! Now for the end walls	Threading more bolts for ridge pole
This is bigger than we thought	Remove all burrs from holes	Tighten ridge pole under hoop with carraige bolt through top
Ready for the final hoop. Looks like a perfect fit	Now it's time for teamwork	This hoop house is designed to be moved around the garden but better have your Wheaties first
Students measure the diagonal for square	Moving three inches to the right gives us perfect square	Now we level the front and back. Next, measure for your wall joists. Don't forget the door.
Make groove for the wood to fit the pipe by making many cuts, then chisel	Mr. Thurston holds board for hand cutting of strapping	Okay, let's move it again just for the exercise
Double check for square after leveling	Now we're ready to nail	Mr. Widmer leads in the clean-up effort

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