Making a hoop house

I've been interested in using hoop houses or cold frames for a few years now.  For those who may not be aware, both are structures that help extend the growing season (earlier in the spring or later in the fall/winter) by being used as something of a mini-green house.

A cold frame has traditionally been a box with a window on top.  They can be very simple or made to be ornate with a hinged top, stands to help keep the window up for occasional ventilation, and more.

A hoop house works similarly, but is a bit more temporary.  In a hoop house, you have half hoops made of metal tubing (often conduit) or PVC either mounted to a frame or stuck into the ground with garden fabric or plastic mounted over top to create the greenhouse effect.

I did some shopping at our local Ace Hardware store to look for conduit or PVC.  Conduit isn't cheap and neither is PVC if you're on a budget.  Also, when I tried bending the PVC, it wasn't overly happy by being bent.  I guess I could heat it up with a heat gun, but, still I was concerned about ruining it.  I also contacted a local rental place to find a conduit bender tool.  They didn't have one, but thought an all-thread bending tool might work.

Stymied, I shelved the whole concept and pondered and read more about it.

This morning, my office-mate at work sent me a message letting me know about a concept he found on his Facebook thread.  HGTV did a mini program about making hoop houses out of half-hula hoops.

BRILLIANT!!!

Hula hoops are inexpensive, are readily available, and already come pre-bent.  Looks like I may be making myself a hoop house or two this weekend to protect our spring crops.