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Building A Cheap Hoop House With Andrew Odom

Andrew Odom (@AndrewOdom) is one of my imaginary friends that I met on Twitter. He lives and gardens down south in Georgia.

He built an almost recycled hoop house for his garden for under $30. I’m jealous.

Since the small plastic greenhouses that I made failed, this is something that I will definitely consider for my backyard vegetable garden in Brooklyn next winter.

Curious as to what went into the construction of Andrew’s and the results, I asked him a few questions that he kindly answered.

Where’d you get the idea of the hoop house?
I wanted to grow beyond the traditional season and I still had some plants that were hanging on and I definitely wanted to try something out of my comfort zone. After seeing The $50 Greenhouse, I knew I had it in my to give it a try.

How much did it cost to make?
It cost about $29 in actual legal tender but about $75 worth of begging, borrowing and pleading.

How long did it take? Actual time spent working on it? And actual time from beginning to end?
It took me about a week to get all the materials together (including the plastic and PVC), about 6 hours of actual labor. I kept it up from about November 4 to about January 16. Full photo set of building the hoop house.

What was the most difficult part in making it?
The most difficult part was manipulating the plastic without putting any holes in it or allowing for any air draft. The plastic needed is in one large sheet and required a second and third set of hands at times.

What were the results? Did it work?
The results were about 3 harvests of baby romaine lettuce, 1 harvest of purple cabbage (7 heads) and 25 or so sweet onions. We did lose some plants to an unpredictable (and totally unexpected) freeze in early January. Because we were using geothermic temperatures as well (the raised beds were actually one inch into the soil causing the roots to dig into actual earth and not just developed bed) we had to deal with unseasonable ice. It worked well though…especially for a first (and rather unorthodox) try.

What was it like deconstructing it?
Deconstruction was easy. The plastic was contractors plastic so I didn’t expect it to work more than one season. Because it had weathered – stretched and sagged a bit – I ended up just kind of ripping it off and folding it to be used later on random projects. The PVC I took down, labeled for next year and taped up. Check out his hoop house deconstruction photo set on Flickr.

Would you do it again? If so, what would you change?
I would do it again, for sure, but I would make the skeleton a little more stable using a wood framework for the front and back and only using PVC in the middle structure. I would also give myself more plastic to negotiate rather than being so specific with my measurements.

Thanks Andrew. Now I feel like a complete lazy ass for putting a garbage bag over my containers and calling it a day. This would’ve been so much more practical. Great work my man!

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My Favorite UrbanOrganicGardener Moments of 2009

With this being my last post of the year, I wanted to share with you my favorite moments from UrbanOrganicGardener.

This might seem a bit self-serving, but when I first set out and started this project my goal was to get just one salad. It’s turned into a bit more than that. I’ve been able to get that salad (and many more), but I’ve also been able to connect personally with many of you and that’s really been the best part.

So I’ll close out this year with some of my faves:

Like I said my goal was to get one salad, so when I harvested veggies from my fire escape for the first time is up there for me.

Not only harvesting the salad, but eating the salad ranks high up there as well. The fact that I was able to trace my produce from fire escape to bowl was a bit overwhelming for me. Just check out the video in the post.

A few months into the blog, I started to receive emails from readers about starting their own gardens after seeing what I did.

Mariann in Arizona was the first to send me a note. She was hesitant at first and had lots of questions. The best part about her garden was that it was a way for her and her teenage son to bond.

A few months later her garden was doing well. She was able to harvest lots of basil and her cucumber and tomatoes were starting to fruit and blossom.

Annie also hit me up to tell me that she started her own urban garden in Washington, DC. She used some soda bottles, planted and hung them in her backyard.

Earlier in the month, I was on the left coast and did an urban gardening workshop with a kindergarten class in Sherman Oaks, CA.

I got to work with the kids and parents to get the class set up with their very own Urban-Kinder Garden. The first day was spent with the parents setting up the self-watering containers and talking to them about the importance of growing your own food.

On the second day, I worked with the parents and the students to set the garden up and start their own worm composting bin. This event was definitely one of the highlights for me of the whole experience – getting to work with the kids. Mad fun.

Without all of you none of this would have been possible. I sincerely thank all of you and look forward to learning more and keeping this journey going in 2010.

What were your favorite UrbanOrganicGardener moments of 2009?

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Checking in On Mariann’s Arizona Container Garden

Back in August, I shared a story with you about Mariann. She lives in Arizona and was hesitant about starting her own container garden, but did it anyways.

Now that she has over two months of experience and experimentation under her belt, she checked back in and shared her progress with me. Below is part of her email:

“If you recall when I started I planted by seeds, early girl tomatoes, cucumber, basil and oregano. Of that 1st batch all that survived was the basil and the cucumber plant. I have harvested quite a bit of basil and the cucumber plant is finally starting to flower.

I have since seeded more basil and more early girl tomatoes which you can see are both doing fabulously. I think I might need to transfer the early girl tomatoes but I am so afraid they will die if I do.

The cherry tomatoes I purchased as a plant and it was probably at least 1/2 the size if not smaller than it is now and as you can see I am seeing fruit.There are about 20 cherry tomatoes on the vines as we speak. This is a blast but i am trying to figure out a way to do this indoors as these are at my parents house as I do not have a lot of sun at my condo, (go figure no sun in AZ) and they are thriving over there but it would be nice to have them at home as well.

As we progress and harvest fruit I will take more pics.

Thanks for sharing all your info. I am truly enjoying it.”

Emails like this totally make this blog worth it. Couldn’t be happier that not only did she start her garden, but is having success and fun with it as well.

I know you can’t wait to start your garden in the spring. Am I right?

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Urban Gardening in Washington DC

Received an email from another reader, Annie from Washington DC, that wanted to start her own urban garden. She had the space on her deck that got plenty of sun. Her concern was that it was too late in the season.

She had a few questions and concerns, but just told her to stop worrying and to start growing her vegetable garden.

So I challenged her to get it done. Since she’s not one to back down from a challenge, she showed me up and planted some herbs and vegetables on her deck.

A few days later, I got an email from her with the pic above. She recycled 2-liter soda bottles and planted buttercrunch and red leaf lettuce, rosemary, chives, and basil.

All the excuses are gone and she got it done. Mariann got it done too.

You’re next. Let me know how it goes.

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Mariann Started a Vegetable Garden How About You?

I received an email from a reader this week, Mariann from Arizona. She’s planted some herbs and vegetables for the first time.

Since her 13 year old son was learning about planting and germinating at school, she saw it as a way for them to bond and share the experience.
They’ve planted tomatoes, cucumber, basil, oregano and sunflower seeds.

To me that’s just awesome.

In our correspondences with each other, Mariann had a lot of questions and expressed how nervous she was.

After some back and forth of questions and answers, she seemed much more comfortable and realized that nothing horrible was going to happen. The worst thing being a plant might not make it. If it didn’t she’d give it another go until the plant did make it.

So not only is she start growing her own vegetables, she’s found a way to bond with her son.

Mariann has started her vegetable garden, when are you starting yours?