Florida Cold Blast !

[FloridaGreenMan]

Sunworshiper...nice looking shelters.  Where did you pick those up?

Yea, they are great looking shelters. 

[sunworshiper]

It is 33 for me at 8am, was 34 at 6am. So looks like it will hold just above freezing - yay! Wunderground was almost dead on for my location, predicted 32 for 2-4 hours.

Thanks for the compliments on my shelters. My husband and I built them out of PVC pipe, gorilla tape and rolls of plastic from Home Depot. There is an eye hook in the top for a triangulation tie down, and the pipe is set over rebar driven into the ground. I put a 250 watt trouble light inside each.  We built them for the brutal freezes we had in 2010, think I spent about $400 to build 10 of them. Takes between 4-8 hours to set them up, but they work well. I lost only one tree on the outer perimeter of my property in 2010, when I had a low of 23, and it was below freezing for 8-10 hours multiple days. For a really hard freeze like that they can only keep the temp at 31/32. But for moderate to light freezes they keep the temp above freezing. Last year they protected mango blooms and I had fruit=)

[Luisport]

@WeatherNation
NEW RECORD LOWS: Mobile, AL (14°) & Pensacola, FL (19° - tied 1924).

[puglvr1]

Sunworshiper...NICE looking shelters...your trees have really grown SO much in the last year!! Great job!!

Jay, I believe she and her husband built those shelters from PVC...she posted it on here a while back...they did a great job!!!

I was very fortunate...my lows this morning was only 36.7 degrees!! Missed that bullet thank goodness!! Tomorrow morning's low is suppose to be only 40 degrees!

[mangobaby]

Sunworshipper - those are nice structures. Can you post pic of the eyehook later.
Ed - your greenhouse looks nice. Does the eBay seller have any other greenhouses for sale?

We had a low of 22 and hard freeze for over 14 hrs last night in Houston. The lowest temp inside the mango structures was 41 degrees. We added extra layers this year to keep the babies warm.



Pug - hope your mangoes are fine. What was the lowest temp in your area?

[val]

You are an inspiration for mango lover's everywhere. Good job.

Sunworshipper - those are nice structures. Can you post pic of the eyehook later.
Ed - your greenhouse looks nice. Does the eBay seller have any other greenhouses for sale?

We had a low of 22 and hard freeze for over 14 hrs last night in Houston. The lowest temp inside the mango structures was 41 degrees. We added extra layers this year to keep the babies warm.



Pug - hope your mangoes are fine. What was the lowest temp in your area?

[mangobaby]

Thanks Val, I didn't know I was famous 

[Jsvand5]

I hit 30 according to the weather channel but it didn't even burn the new growth on the unprotected lychees. Looks like they will be allowed to live for at least another week

[FlyingFoxFruits]

sorry for the blurred pic...my camera has been acting up.

Here is my little greenhouse at home....made out of a carport, plastic (used about 60% of a 100X20 ft roll of 3 mil, cost $60 for the roll), duct tape (made for hanging poly and tarps), shade cloth (tethered with string to pavers to keep it secure)and nursery staples to secure the plastic at the bottom to the ground.

I put a box fan and a space heater in there..and seems to work fine...I'm curious how well it would work if temps got below 25F?

the main problem is the wind!!!  it gets me so agitated and angry it's hard to describe.  I never used to get worked up about strong winds...until I started growing cold sensitive plants that need protection!

I'm going to have to get more of those heavy duty nursery staples to secure the bottom of the plastic...the wind keeps pulling up the small crappy staples (6 inch or so from Home depot, instead of the usual 10 inch heavy duty ones).

here's the pic...notice the plants pressed up against the greenhouse...this helps hold everything in place..and actually keeps the plants outside of the greenhouse warmer....my row of grimals with flowers emerging now didn't seem to mind the cold at all.

[nullzero]

Nice setup Adam, have you tried to use pvc pipes on the bottom to hold down the plastic sheets?

You can wrap a section of the excess plastic that meets the ground around some sections of PVC pipe. Then fasten it with zip ties around the plastic sheets and PVC pipe sections. The PVC pipe would lay across the ground and then could be weighed down with bricks or other heavy objects.

[phantomcrab]

Looks like they will be allowed to live for at least another week

Longer than that...
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/30day/
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/seasonal.php?lead=1

[puglvr1]

"Pug - hope your mangoes are fine. What was the lowest temp in your area?
"

Hi Mangobaby...I was lucky today our lows only hit 36 degrees!! Tomorrow is 39... A few years ago we had 23-31 degrees for almost 4-5 mornings in a row...that was a devastating year for my trees!!

[OrganicJim]

33 degrees was the lowest I had. I set the greenhouse temp at 58 degrees and it seemed to have held all night. Checked the papayas and lemons that were is opens areas and did not feel any frost in them. Looks like everything came through nicely. Only worry I have is that my Mango which is in full bloom is not getting pollinized.

[buddyguygreen]

Keeping all warm here in kissimmee, hit 33.4 for about 15 min at its lowest at about 8:10 a.m., keeping the moringa tree warm out in the open with a home made jacket and it didnt lose any leaves. One more night to go. Hope everyones trees are doing well.











 

[sunworshiper]

Fun to see everyone's shelters! Your structure is huge buddygreenguy! Nice shot with the car in there for perspective.

Adam - I'll be interested to hear if the larger staples work for you. Securing the edges in wind is hard. Corners of mine are down firm with the triangulation ties that go to stakes hammered into the ground. I put pavers on the flat edges to weight them down, but they still get flicked off if the wind is high.

Pug - glad you lucked out and didn't freeze! Thanks for noticing how much my trees have grown=) It is neat seeing them progress.

mangobaby - here's a picture of the eyehook. The pvc side poles fit into one of these at the top, and the eyehook sticks out of the plastic on top for the tie downs to go through.

[edzone9]

Last night in St Augustine we had wind up to 30MPH , I could here the GH tarp flapping in the wind , buy everything held up great .

The 1500W space heater kept it nice & warm at 67F.
Tomorrow afternoon I will uncover my Mangos , I hope they all survived.
All my Bananas where toast !, but they will grow again in the spring.
Ed..