The cost of a hoop house depends on its size and the materials used.

A hoop house may help you grow greens until January.

Meekins learned this after she started building her hoop house in 2005.

She also wants her hoop house to be a place where smaller community gardeners can get their starter plants.

Once a hoop house is up, farmers find using them is a learning experience—more like growing in a traditional greenhouse than a field.

Establish a healthy food co-op and erect a hoop house greenhouse.

In colder weather, composting inside the hoop house can add warmth, since the process throws off heat.

Meekins had expected to spend a few thousand dollars and have a hoop house in a few days.

They've included putting up a hoop house for one woman and reworking Comer's plant rows.

"As urban agriculture has grown, hoop houses have kind of grown simultaneously."

High tunnels are hoop houses, manually ventilated by rolling up the sides.

Before building a hoop house, however, urban growers need to check local zoning rules and building codes.

They are not likely to ripen further, as nights grow progressively colder, without protection under a hoop house.

The lids on the raised beds work like hoop houses or cold frames to protect crops from bad freezes.

The farm contains a large crop growing area, a hoop house, and pasture for sheep and chickens.

Hoop houses are usually permanent structures, but often aren't strong enough to withstand high winds and can collapse if heavy snow isn't brushed off.

And hoop houses don't need heaters or the costly high-intensity lights often used in commercial greenhouses.

Hoop houses were made by several companies and were also frequently made by the growers themselves.

Construct a playground play pad and a hoop house for hands-on organic gardening and farming.

Hoop houses are relatively inexpensive to build and often are unheated—relying instead on the sun or heat thrown off by compost heaps.

Hoop houses: Plastic sheeting is placed over a frame (usually in an arced shape), to create a type of greenhouse.

This spacious, solar-heated "hoop house" has a high, translucent-plastic ceiling through which golden light pours.

Plants started in late winter in the hoop house, Meekins said, will give her an early jump on spring crops for her farm.

Kits for 8-by-10-foot backyard models start at a few hundred dollars, while larger hoop houses can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Their tiny two-acre (0.8 hectare) farm also has a buzzing beehive and a hoop house, which protects produce in the winter.