re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

Measured outdoor low: 24.4F
Greenhouse 1 low: 46.5F
Greenhouse 2 low: 57F
Grow room low: 69F

That's a win, my dudes. Glad to see y'all had similar success. Tonight will be colder but we should have this licked without any unforced errors.

And yes, the additional tarp on top of the greenhouses works. Just that extra layer of air is very significant.

Y'all make sure to cut the heat to anything covered in plastic if it will be in the direct sunlight. Number one way people kill their trees.

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Low of 57? What do you have your thermostat set at?

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50F. That's the result of 3 sealed 5 gallon buckets of hot water. It basically let the heater take the night off except for drafts of cold air that would blow in. The space was level at 49-51F all day then when I added the buckets at about 9:30PM it very slowly raised it to 57F by this morning.



I marked it with a red dot where I added the buckets. See the slow and steady rise? Even more impressive when you look at the curve of the exterior outside temps. The smaller rise before is from turning the grow lights on.



So even with temps falling all night and the heater set to 50F, those hot buckets did excellent work in this 8X8X7 tent. Love having data on all this. Lets you dispose of all the silly old wives' tales about keeping greenhouses warm (candle and a terracotta pot, etc.)

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Y'all make sure to cut the heat to anything covered in plastic if it will be in the direct sunlight. Number one way people kill their trees.

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You can see when mine was getting the direct sunlight.

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I just hate having to protect this satsuma that hasn't even made an orange yet. If none this season, I am starting over.

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I have a Brown's Satsuma tree that is 5 years old and never produced one that is sweet enough to eat. I left it uncovered. I'm about to see if it made it. I planted an Arctic Frost last year, it's covered.

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guava

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Not going to tolerate freezing temps. If you can't keep them above 32F I'd look into the cattley guava. Good down to 22F in the ground (better than a navel orange).

As someone who's had zero experience with greenhouses other than watching Frosty the Snowman every year, i still find it amazing that the temperature inside this portable pop up tent that's sitting in the sun is 78F while the temperature outside is 38F.

And i maintained 45F all night with my little heater, but it's still crazy to me that i have to go open up the doors and windows around 11am or it's going to get too hot in there.

I did try to test and see what plants could handle near 32F about a week or so ago when we had some low temps. I think it got to 32 one night. The guava and mamey leaves started turning a little brown, and as expected my ice cream banana tree did as well.
My lime, pineapple, mango's, avacado all seemed to do just fine.

My reason for testing is that I don't want to take the greenhouse out often and want to see when it's necessary and for what trees.

The cold hardier trees i want to put in my front yard, in a flower bed i no longer want to be a flower bed and just have potted citrus trees in it with some rocks as the bed. Then i can get the portable greenhouse that butts up to the wall for those and not have to use it that often, and not have to transport them around too much.

Then i'll keep the more cold sensitive trees in the back where I can put up the bigger greenhouse for them more often, or even just leave it up in the winter (with the windows open of course).

fuuuuuuck