How we move our Hoophouses

[oxbowfarm]

Richardw asked in another thread about how we move out hoophouses. I promised to get a video which I didn't do but I did take a couple pics to show the basics. This is definitely a cob-job system, really a prototype cob-job system and we are still making changes to it to make it faster. Actually rolling the house goes really quick, but all the set-up and take-down need a lot of streamlining.

Basically we have built our hoophouses on angle-iron rails and then we've built wheel assemblies out of a garden-cart wheel with a box around it. Attached to the box is an additional section of angle iron that slides underneath the hoophouse rail and they are clamped together. We also have found it necessary to add the section of furring strip to keep the wheels vertical, without it they toe in towards the house and pop off.



We have four of these assemblies for each side of the house.
I'd also like to build some little wheels or ski tips to attach to the ends of the rails in whatever direction the house is rolling to keep them from digging in as the house goes over uneven ground. Our field is pretty flat but it still happens, there is considerable flex to the houses when they are being moved.



I was able to move this house all by my lonesome yesterday, but it was a calm day and the spot we moved it onto hadn't been tilled since last summer. In soft ground you definitely need two people to push them easily.

[steev]

Very ingenious.

[richardw]

You've got me thinking about how i could do a hoophouse like yours now.
i thought that maybe short pieces of steel chains could be concreted into the ground at close intervals down each two sides of my paddock,that way it could be moved by using a pulley system and skids like you've used.

What i like about being able to move a hothouse around is you never have to replace soil which needs to be done with a permanent structure

[raymondo]

Very nice set up.

[12540dumont]

Oxbow is really the Wiley Coyote of cool garden building.

[bunkie]

very clever!

[synergy]

Fascinating, thank you for sharing that oxbowfarm . I can see how this would allow for a type of rotation where you can use rotating areas of soil to grow into an extended season and even possible uses to house animals in colder months in a bid that ammend the soil as well.
If you get a chance, can you please comment on how you have found this to work in your favour ?

[oxbowfarm]

I don't want to give the impression that this is my idea. I am basically using the ideas straight out of the Four Season Harvest by Elliot Coleman. The only thing I'm doing that is a little different is that my houses are homebuilds and the method I use to move them is a little different. Most of the mobile hoophouses that are on the market are on skids and are dragged or are on a permanent track system. I don't have a tractor to drag a house and I cannot (yet) afford the track system houses which are very much nicer than these home-builts.

It works in your favor by multiplying the effect of having the hoophouse. Instead of a 48 foot house, you in essence have a 196 foot one. For example, House #2 was on plot A last winter covering spinach, I moved it to Plot B in March to cover the Strawberries, when the berries were done in early June I moved it to Plot C to cover peppers and eggplant. Late this fall I'll move it to Plot D to cover mature fieldgrown spinach for the winter. You cover crops with the house just for the period that it does them the most good and then move it on. This dramatically multiplies the number and variety of crops we are able to get to market much earlier in the season.

We are still really new at this and have a lot of kinks and streamlining to work out till this system is functioning the way I am certain it can. But I'm really happy with them.

[steev]

Growing my stuff in long, narrow beds, I can see the potential value of this. The only problem for me would be to organize my planting so that when I reach the end of a bed, I'd be able to start back, rather than having to move the house sideways or move it over inconveniently growing things, back to the start.

Then there is the wind, a more serious problem.

[12540dumont]

Ahh yes the wind. Are you talking about those under the hoops or that dread thing that comes out of the North and sends umbrellas to neighbor's house?

[steev]

I'm talking about the occasional thing that carries off my greenhouse to another county. Mostly comes from the West and did so. Umbrellas? That happens daily.