DIY Hoop House for raised Bed
I have seen this hack of using PVC pipes to make hoop house covers or to trellis plants in the garden, but I have never tried it. I have bought metal hoops from amazon- they completely collapsed. I have owned an expensive green house cover- it was ridiculous to put together, rusted, broke and still let the critters inside. I have just covered the plants themselves with a layer or fleece or mesh. Which works- to a point. So when I saw the bugs starting to eat my fall sowing even after I put mesh over the top, I thought let’s try this DIY method.
So I went on an adventure to Home Depot:
1/2 inch galvanized pipe straps
I used these galvanized pipe straps to hold the 1/2” pvc pipes in place on the inside of my raised bed. I only needed 1 pack since I as putting up 5 hoops.
1/2 inch PVC pipe
I bought 5 of these PVC pipes in 1/2 inch. They were 10 feet long so the height of my hoops is about 5 ft at the center.
We have a pretty good supply of screws at home so I used these 1 inch screws to secure the straps to the inside of the beds. My raised beds are only about an inch thick so I didn’t want to risk going through and leaving sharp screws pointing through the other side.
This is how I secured the first side. Then I just bent the pipe down to the opposite side of the bed and secured it using a strap.
After all 5 hoops were in place. I felt like it needed something to hold all the hoops together. My bed is about 13 feet long so I couldn’t just use another PVC pipe but if your bed is shorter, that would be a good call.
I still have some left over bamboo stakes from trellising etc. I secured a few of them in an overlapping fashion across the top of the hoops using twine.
I covered the hoops with mesh and secured with bricks at the bottom and clips to secure to the hoops. As it gets cooler, I will switch over to fleece.
All in all, I am very pleased with how this came out. Only time will tell if it holds up to the weather. Honestly I think the hoops will be fine. The mesh or fleece will probably get worn or collapse if we get ice or snow early this year but that is nothing new. This whole project took me about 25 minutes and a lot of it was because I was fussing with the mesh and deciding how I wanted to place the hoops. If I was to do it again on another bed, I am sure it would take me 15 minutes. It was also one of the most cost effective ways to protect the plants. I spent about about $25 dollars total. If you have a raised bed and you want to protect your plants from pests or extend your growing season by adding a fleece cover, this is a good idea.
