and hopefully its not windy and the choppers crash. good advice on covering them with water, thats basically what strawberry farmers do when its cold.
back to the picture... one of micks crackheads
Being that far north, you might have a hard time keeping fruit on them. Especially if you get a freeze after they go to bloom. Unless you have some kind of heater system. I have three trees, and all I do every year is dump a bag of citrus fertilizer around them in the spring. The fruit is just now getting ripe. We have had some cold weather down here in Tampa so far, but not long enough to damage the fruit. Last year the fruit froze on the trees and it went bad in a hurry.
Carlos said the grapefruit on my tree is better than any you can buy at the store
I do have a semi-truck load of freeze cloth but I am too lazy (during hunting season) to actually use it. Too bad they wouldn't be small enough to fit in a greenhouse.
I'm waiting to see the outcome of my buddy's trees as he is further north than I am (Crawfordville). I've killed many a palm tree trying to plant them in a zone they don't belong and then not covering them up correctly during every freeze. I killed over 1,500 full 3 gal phoenix roebellini several years ago. That was a costly mistake :censored
If you can find some smut pots they will keep the cold out of your trees, we had some citrus trees in Williston when I used to work up there and we would light about 6 pots in our little grove and hit them with a good bit of water before it got dark and they were fine. If you cover the entire tree with water right before dark, it will freeze and act like an insulation on the trees, keeping the fruit in tact. Or you could do what they do in Belle Glade and hire you a fleet of helicopters to hover over your fields all night keeping the hot air on their cane.
I use to run the irrigation half the night (on a timer) when I had mats of smaller palms but at the age of my palms now, most can take the below freezing temps without damage. I have my irrigation pvc pipes on top of the mats (for easier maintenence) and last year was the first year it got so cold that it busted 1/4 of my total above ground pvc. I went ahead and drained the pipes to winterize them as the palms should be fine now. I keep my seedlings covered but that's it.
The smut pots are a good idea but I think I could just keep the citrus in pots and move them under the barn instead. My family would kill me if I burnt those pines and barn down.
I don't think I make enough money to justify a fleet of helicopters yet :eek
