The Tropical Fruit Forum

I just got a tangerine tree from four winds and mine seems to be fine, I ordered a kumquat tree from them earlier in the season and it seems fine as well

I should clarify that I've had no trouble with other trees from them either, just this one seems more finicky than usual.

I was wondering whether you grow this avocado tree outside or inside the greenhouse ?
What is the minimal temperature the tree has to handle ?
Thank you,

It's planted in the ground in the greenhouse, but my greenhouse was built in April, so it was in a pot indoors last winter. My goal with the greenhouse is to keep it above freezing on our coldest nights and above 40°F most winter nights.

I will be testing the hardiness of this and other cultivars outdoors here, but not this particular tree.

Wonderful89 was the lucky winner on this one

Swincher,
Here's the link to the Chicken people who sell the Star Plate kits

Thanks!

This is my current greenhouse, picture taken when it was first built.  It still looks pretty much identical from the outside. 

Holy cow that's an impressive greenhouse! Very pleasing to the eyes and still highly utilitarian too.

We live in the suburbs so unfortunately no giant greenhouse although that would be a dream. We have a couple greenhouses, one 200' and the other 100'. I guess they are more like insulated lean to 4 season porches with double polycarbonate roofs. In the good weather seasons I move everything outside and put window screen inserts and patio furniture in, and in the cold months I put polycarbonate inserts into the windows. I have the home heating recirculating through both greenhouses which is a lot cheaper than using electric heaters. I built the smaller one last year after I removed an old tin shed in its place.

Until my wife suggested the garage conversion, I was talking about multiple attached sunroom/greenhouse additions instead, but since our house has old cedar shingles the attachment was not going to be easy without a lot of work on the external walls of the house, too. I'm happy with what we did, but being able to use your home's heating and access directly from indoors are major pluses of that style!

All your greenhouses are beautiful and what I dream of building when I have my own property. For now I went budget but it’s holding up to strong winds, hail, and a skim of about 2” of granular hail build up.

Mine has two gable fans that are automated to turn on at 84f and it has 50% shade cloth for summer which I’ll remove for winter. It gives me about 10f of protection on a good hot day in the winter and maintains that gain overnight. Only needed a supplemental heater for a few nights last winter.

Looks like you're making the best of the limited space!  With the cost of both land and building materials lately I feel so privileged that we already have a yard and could convert the garage to a greenhouse without much need for lumber.

Nice greenhouses everyone!
Here are some pictures of mine (built last year)

Currently in ground I have mangoes, jackfruit, abiu, guava, jaboticaba, white sapote, garcinia brasiliensis, lychee, rollina, sugar apple, and pitanga. Most of these have been in ground for a little over a year.
I hope one day to upgrade the sides of the greenhouse to polycarbonate walls as they have a cleaner look. Also am still looking for ways to make the greenhouse more efficient at retaining heat.
The dimensions are 20x28 with a 12ft peak. 

What a great size! And an impressive array of stuff growing in there, too. Adding a second layer of the film (esp with air blown between) would improve the heat retention a lot without the hassle of replacing the glazing with polycarbonate panels.

Nice greenhouses everyone.
Heres mine, it's like a jungle in there haha

A nice lush, healthy looking jungle though! I hope mine will be a jungle in the coming years, too.

Last night I plugged in the heater and set it a bit warmer than normal just to see if my 12-13°F memory was correct from the spring when I first got this heater, and yep it looks like that's where it plateaued when the outside temperatures dipped into the mid-40s:


You can also see the fan kicking in later. I've already switched the screen door for polycarbonate because it's getting cooler at night lately, so the 12x12" intake limits the fan's cooling to about +16°, it's closer to 12-14° with the screen door.

Mark in Texas asked in another thread for photos of my greenhouse, so I thought it would be best to start a new thread just for greenhouse photos, since I'd love to see photos of other people's greenhouses both for inspiration and just for fun.

Our greenhouse started its life as a 2x4-framed, dirt floored, 50+ years-old 1-car garage:


Everything but the framing was removed:
 

Then 8mm twin wall polycarbonate panels were affixed:


Here are a couple photos of the current inhabitants:




In the ground so far:
• two multi-graft avocado trees (grafted with Royal-Wright, Aravaipa, Duke, Brazos Belle, Joey, and scions of a seedling grown tree from Houston)
• A Dwarf Cavendish banana
• two Passiflora maliformis seedlings

Soon to go in the ground:
• Two more avocado seedlings to become multi-grafts
• Some dragonfruit seedlings along the inside of the north wall

As far as the dimensions, the greenhouse is about 14' wide, 21' long, and 8'4" from floor to the rafters, plus 3' to the peak of the roof in the center. So I'll have to train the avocados to grow bushy, but hopefully it'll be enough room for them long-term.

For cooling, I have a 16" ventilation fan plugged into a solid state Therma-Cube switch that turns it on at 80°F and off around 68°F, and this usually keeps the high temperature to about 14° over ambient:


For heating, I'm using a 1.5kW "Dr. Heater" that has worked ok so far but may need upgrading eventually. I haven't sealed up all the air leaks around the eaves and foundation, but the heater seems capable of maintaining about 12-13°F over ambient, which should be enough to keep it over freezing on all but our coldest nights (on average like once every 3 years maybe), when supplemental heating may be required. Hopefully with better sealing of drafty bits I can get that up to +15°F.

Anyone know anything about a variety of Hass named Jimenez?

By "variety of Hass" do you mean it's a seedling of Hass? Or a budsport? Or just another cultivar that produces fruit similar in appearance to Hass?

Sorry I don't have any knowledge of Jimenez, but just curious what you meant by that.

Smaller fruit could mean it has Mexican avocado genes... is the skin also thinner than normal? Do the leaves smell like anise when crushed? Those would be better indicators of potential hardiness.

It does look similar to the "Second Red" cultivar mentioned in this blog post, but avocados of various different lineages probably look similar.

I would also just buy Toro Canyon plants if you'd grow those out! Or seeds.

This is one of the TDE tangerines, Tahoe Gold, which I bought from Four Winds earlier this year. It's been doing ok most of the summer, but I noticed these splotches on the leaves appearing and spreading a week or two ago, seems to be worsening:


Hopefully this is just a deficiency and not some kind of viral or bacterial issue? None of the photos I can find online of leaf yellowing look quite the same, though. None of my other citrus seem affected, and they've all been in the same soil, same fertilizers, same temperatures (mostly in the greenhouse but out in the yard for extra hot days). The only difference other than cultivar really is this is my only tree from Four Winds. Maybe they use a rootstock that's particular about soil or something?

Anyone know what this is?

Any tips on where to find these patches? I might go looking for some in Georgia.

High streambanks with sandy/well-draining soil are where I usually found them when I lived in the Mid-Atlantic. They grow in fairly dense patches that are often clonal, because they aggressively send out root runners when they are in favorable conditions. Most often found as an understory tree in established forests.

Nice! FYI, this post should probably be in the Temperate Fruit sections

Very nice looking trees there. Unfortunately Gainesville is pretty far for me. Estimated 5 or so hour drive. Im way up around the bend of the panhandle near Panama city.  It can get very cold here. Since ive been here it hit 18F one night the first winter. Every decade or so the locals say it may hit around 15F. However since that first year its not hardly broken the high to mid 20s. I think I can definitely get them to grow here but need the coldest hardy types like joey or fantastic. Would try others too as long as they handle the lower 20s at least. Would try to microclimate their environment for sure.

I think as long as you protect them until they are mature trees, most of the hardy cultivars will do ok for you. The biggest problem will be the rootstock, since commercial grafted trees are generally on Lula seedlings in FL, and Lula is pretty frost tender.

I'm pushing even harder than you here in Seattle, so rather than getting a few grafted cultivars I'm planting dozens of seedlings every year until I find some that survive. But I'm keeping a few mature trees in the greenhouse to ensure a constant supply of new seeds in years to come. We tend to hit the mid-teens once every 10-15 years, but most years it doesn't get below the mid-20s. Our biggest problem is the long duration of very cool temperatures (lows in mid-30s, highs in low-40s), coupled with constant drizzly rain, which will probably cause root rot issues.

https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/egov/Press_Releases/Press_Release.asp?PRnum=21-091