@JCT Here’s a few pictures from this morning. It dropped to 14F last night after the snowstorm past and skies cleared. Inside the greenhouse the low was 36F thanks to 10-15 bucks worth of nat gas.
The greenhouse was put in chill cycle early this week. That’s what the fabric helps provide.
I’m only chilling the center 4 rows. The plants near the outside wall are all figs so they don’t need chilling. The center two rows will be removed so as to expand the area for growing out fig plants.
Great pics Steven. I really enjoy seeing photos of your operation.
Thank you! Very impressive.
You have snow on the ground and I have 80+ degree weather.
Very nice @fruitnut, it’s always fascinating to see the changes in your greenhouse from year to year. Are you getting much temperature difference between your “chilling tunnel” and the space on the edge? It sounds like you’ll at least be keeping a few rows to chill for stone fruit production so I guess your best varieties will get a reprieve! Have you decided which ones to keep? Mostly nectarines to avoid pollenator needs?
The fabric does help keep it cooler during the day, maybe by 10F. I can hold as much as 15-18F cooler inside than out when using the fabric. Don’t have much experience without the fabric over the canopy. I tried one day without the fabric and it really warmed up in there even running everything else including the evaporative cooler.
You’re right I’ll keep the things I don’t need to buy bees for pollination. So figs, blackberry, nectarine and peach will be the bulk. My dried nectarines and peaches are superb this yr. Pluots not so much so they will go.
A half days work and my greenhouse is minus 30 pluot and apricot on K1. As expected the trees were severely infected with crown gall. Also took out the trellis.
The greenhouse now looks like this:
The trees look like this:
Steven,
You say as “expected”. Did you mean perchance mean “suspected”? Did you have any specific reason to expect the infection ie the inadvertent introduction of an infected tree? Or did you suspect it a because of any some other above ground indication .
And …does the ground from which they were removed now have to be treated in any way?
Looks like such a shame.
Mike
K1 isn’t resistant but it’s probably not as bad as Citation. Having trees in there on Citation for 10 yrs built up a very high level of crown gall. So I knew it was probably going to be bad. Several trees lacked vigor and when removed had the galls. The trees have only been there 3 yrs.
I suppose one could treat with something like methyl bromide. But that would kill anything growing in there. We’ll see how figs do.
Steve,
That is very unfortunate. I always like seeing your pluots fruit photos. Do you still have any pluots?
Tony
One in ground plant. Maybe I’ll multigraft it this spring. Six in a pot. That’s six trees in one pot.
Ooof! All figs or back to the other types of stone fruit?
Let me guess…Flavor King?
I am keeping one fig indoors in my greenhouse to see how it does. It was one of the cuttings from you a year ago. It was starting to produce figlets. I want to see if they will continue to try and produce. My greenhouse is heated so the fig will get no dormancy or chill this year. I want to test if this matters. Best of luch with your greenhouse. Hate that the pluots were not working out any more. I know how much you loved them.
Drew
I brought inside two CH figs this fall, both have a fig growing on them now
I hope you can save the varieties that you have dug up by grafting them onto the one in the ground and the six trees in one pot. I have a plum tree that has 11 varieties on it. It is very healthy. My Royal Ann cherry tree died this past season however, I grafted some scions of it to another tree a couple of years ago. Now that variety lives on in my yard.
I wish I would have understood how severe crown gall can be on citation + the combination of alkaline soil. For whatever reason just about every other rootstock seems to do OK, but citation is really bad for crown gall. Also, I have noticed trees surrounded by grass on citation are not nearly as affected as those only covered with mulch or dirt. This may be a water issue, but I suspect there could be more at play…It is really too bad, because I have so many trees on citation 
I took the trees out in order to expand the area for other projects. Not because of the crown gall. But many of the trees were in decline so that made it easier.
The pluots are good fresh but not as good as nectarines dried. That didn’t help their cause.
The pluot left in ground is Dapple Supreme. Not because it’s that good but because it’s in the rows that remain.
I hate taking plants out, but I finally bit the bullet and removed a bunch of plants for various reasons. Some were excellent, but didn’t fit my needs anymore. I’m really glad I did it. I plan to replace with lower maintenance plants. I found my time consumed in maintenance this year.Maybe pluots don’t dry well, but man they have a huge shelf life in the fridge, that really surprised me this year. I kept some over 5 weeks, they got soft, but were still excellent. I have to dry more peaches next year. I want a better dehydrator. Mostly because I broke mine when a huge board fell on it. I saw a square tray type that I may pick up. I need to buy something before next season.
I threw out some tropical houseplants that weren’t happy inside my house and took a lot of maintenance while they slowly declined. It’s simpler here now
I removed about 50 prunus besseyi sand cherry bushes about 2 years ago because some were carrying canker. Canker is always just one step behind when I plant stone fruit. Some locations on my property never became completely infected and others did but the infection is always present. Carmine Jewell’s look great so far but there may be a day I need to pull them out. Sorry to see you pulled so many trees.
