Hoophouses

Our farming situation

Growing vegetables outside in our location is difficult. We are at 7,250 feet elevation, which means our spring is late and winter comes early. Our growing season length varies unpredictably, because we can have extreme weather conditions in what you would think would be mild times of year. We've had snow as late as June 6 and as early as the first week in September, and freezes can be even more erratic. Typically we can count on a 100 day growing season -- 120 days if we're fortunate. We do not typically experience the hot days and warm nights that heat-loving crops enjoy. In the fall, our days typically reach 75 - 80 °F and our nights dip down into the 30s and 40s. Ripening tomatoes is difficult.

Our soil is another challenge. We were told when we moved to Colorado, that if we intended to landscape, we should save as much money as we can to buy dirt. We have a varying palette of rock-hard clay and sand. There is almost no topsoil, and very little organic matter. When it rains, most of our soil turns into a mudslick, and when it dries out it's like stone.

So, why are we here? We feel God has placed us here to provide nutrition to people in our local area, which includes Denver, Colorado Springs, and smaller communities like Castle Rock and Monument. If we as a nation are serious about eating local food, we as farmers need to be able to produce food in whatever kind of weather and terrain God gives us. After all, there are a lot of folks who live in pretty inhospitable locations for raising vegetables.

We believe certain amounts of technology can be applied to make the food selection as broad as possible, but within reason dictated by our conscience. For example, we would not consider it acceptable to put in heated greenhouses capable of maintaining a tropical environment so that we could grow bananas in the mountains. This would be forcing it too much. However, we do consider it acceptable to extend and moderate our growing season with fairly low-tech, mostly unheated hoophouses to enable cultivation of a broader array of vegetables than we could grow outside.

Our hoophouses

Following on this philosophy, we installed two commercial hoophouses in 2007, one in the late winter and the second in the fall. The houses were purchased from FarmTek. The hoophouses are essentially identical 34' x 72' gothic arch Solar Style greenhouses, FarmTek item number 106316C.

Our hoophouses have roll-up sides, inflated double poly covering, and polycarbonate end walls. We did purchase the kit form of the greenhouse, which includes heaters, fans, and vents, but we have not used the heaters yet. In fact, they are not yet installed. We will probably go ahead and install the heaters, and set the thermostat to about 20 °F, since there are a few nights each winter where we would like to apply heat. But, read about our project exploring the impact of raising animals inside hoophouses to see what we are testing as an alternative.

We installed the hoophouses ourselves. The first one went up with the generous assistance of family members and men from our church. It reminded us of an old-fashioned barn-raising. Overall FarmTek did an amazing job putting together the kits, given that there are thousands of parts making up one of the houses. We did have to go back a few times for missing bolts or brackets, but FarmTek's customer service was excellent. They did not ask questions or imply that we lost parts -- they simply sent what we needed to finish the job. I've dealt with FarmTek on a number of occasions, and always found their customer service consistently good.

The hoophouses themselves are intelligently designed, and seem to be durable. We have had a few issues, but nothing significant. Overall we are happy with our purchases and look forward to many years of growing in our hoophouses.

Growing in the hoophouses

We grow in the ground currently, in simple, shaped raised beds. We would like to install permanent raised beds eventually, but have no current plans to install benches. We also do not plan to grow hydroponically. We ventilate using vent fans and motor-operated louvers, and use horizontal airflow fans to circulate the air inside during warm weather.

We did not get the first hoophouse completed in time to really have a summer growing season in 2007. We had started about 1,400 tomatoes, most of which died by the time we were able to plant in late June. But what we did get planted did fairly well, given the minimal amount of soil amendment we were able to do.

Likewise, we did not get the second hoophouse installed soon enough in the fall of 2007 to have a winter crop. We used the second house to house animals during that winter as part of an experiment.

So the summer of 2008 gave us our first real experience growing summer crops. Even though we planted a bit late, we harvested an abundance of heirloom tomatoes, pole beans, cucumbers, okra, and sweet corn. Other crops did not do so well: our cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage) were completely destroyed by cabbage moth caterpillars. Our peppers were destroyed by aphids and were doing poorly anyway. But the crops that did well did very well, and we are encouraged and look forward to the summer of 2009.

	Pruning tomatoes, mid-June 2008
	Our tomato jungle, mid-August, 2008
	Corn, okra, beans, cucumbers, leeks, cabbage, cauliflower, mid-August, 2008

In the fall of 2008 we planted one hoophouse in winter crops, following Eliot Coleman's practices of season extension from the Four-Season Harvest. We are astounded by the results. Inside the hoophouse and under floating row covers, we have had many of our varieties of greens doing very well into late January. We have put a portable heater inside when the temperature outside dropped below zero. But we have found that, without supplemental heat, many of the greens can survive in temperatures as low at 14 °F inside the hoophouse. As of January 17th, the date of this writing, we are pulling delicious carrots daily, and eating our fill of mixed winter greens. We have leftover leeks in what was our summer hoophouse last year, and we are still pulling them on a regular basis in excellent condition, even though that house has never had supplemental night heat and the temperature inside has dropped to 0 °F.

This next summer, we plan to plant both hoophouses to summer crops, and the following fall we hopefully will be planting both hoophouses to full winter crops.

Irrigation

Of course, we must irrigate inside the hoophouses, since they are covered. In our semi-arid climate, we must be as gentle on the water supply as possible. In our first hoophouse, we installed drip irrigation from DripWorks, another company that is a pleasure to deal with. We use T-Tape, and love it. In our winter greenhouse, we installed an overhead mist system, also from DripWorks, and similarly are very happy with it. Root zone watering is what we prefer for individual plant-type crops, such as tomatoes, beans, etc. For bed-type crops, such as lettuces, greens, carrots, spinach, etc., we prefer overhead misting. This next season we will be installing T-Tape in the second hoophouse, since both will be in summer plant-type crops. Then, the following winter, we will be installing overhead misters in the first hoophouse, since both houses will be in winter bed-type crops.

	Planting tomatoes along T-Tape
	T-Tape with seedling beans and cucumbers
	Close-up of T-Tape in bean row

Trellises

To maximize our valuable hoophouse space, we grow crops vertically if at all possible. We trellis our tomatoes, pole beans, and cucumbers, and grow indeterminate tomatoes only. We use the most simple and cost-effective trellises we can devise. The supports are T-posts: 7' posts for tomatoes and cucumbers, and 10' posts for pole beans. We brace the end posts using Wedge-Loc brackets and additional T-posts. The posts are placed about every 8'. Across the tops of the posts, we stretch a strand of mild steel fencing wire. Then we hang nylon netting (Hortonova, from Johnny's Selected Seeds). We attach the trellis netting to the top wire using nylon wire ties. We use a Ty'mup (which we love) to attach vines to the netting. We grew several thousand pounds of tomatoes last summer with this trellis design. If you can think of a trellis design that is simpler, more durable, and/or cheaper, please let us know.