I’ve had a hoop house at Dancing Rabbit for over 5 years. In that time I’ve grown thousands of pounds of salad greens, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. In this video, I take you on a little tour of my hoop house and its irrigation system. It uses entirely caught rainwater, solar power, and gravity for irrigation. This hoop house has allowed me to extend the growing season and provide the community fresh local produce year round.
The land the hoop house is on was originally planned to be vineyard until the opportunity came along to get a grant from the USDA for the new structure. With a little investment in local, organic inputs such as cow, chicken, and horse manure, wood ash, and lime, what had been thin poor soil has quickly been restored to abundant food production. The entire operation is run without any direct use of fossil fuel. The beds are prepared by hand and all the weeding is done by hand as well–no rototillers or flame weeders.