hula-hoop cloche

Building a cloche is like putting a cozy blanket over your plants. It will keep the soil warmer, which means that you can start sowing seeds earlier in the spring and keep plants growing longer into the fall and even the winter. Best of all, the colorful Hula-Hoop frame will look great all year round.

You will need

• ✿ 2 Hula-Hoops (ask a grown-up to cut them in half)
• ✿ 8 pieces of bamboo cane, 1.5ft (40cm) long
• ✿ 6ft (2m) length of horticultural fleece
• ✿ 8 large, colored clothes pins

Try this... In the summer months, why not take off the horticultural fleece and use your cloche frame as a colorful support for growing dwarf climbing beans or pea plants?

Step 1

Insert the lengths of bamboo cane into the ends of your four Hula-Hoop sections so that half of a bamboo cane is sticking out from each end of the hoops.

Step 2

Push the bamboo part of the hoop structure into the earth on either side of the crops that you need to protect or the seeds and soil that you would like to warm up.

Step 3

Ask a grown-up or friend to help you cover the hoops with the piece of horticultural fleece. It is a much easier job if there are two of you.

Step 4

Secure the fleece at the bottom of each of the hoops with a clothes pin. Make sure you gather up the fleece before pegging so that there are no gaps to let in cold air.