I’ve now got two heaters. After waiting 4 months for someone to install a second heater, I decided I’d have to do it myself. About five hours later it’s hung. I wish I could hook it up myself but that’s above my pay grade. I’m best at grunt work.
Here’s before:
And here’s after:
I may be nearly 80 but I can still do grunt work… 
What are your energy costs, Steve?
gary (who knows from the Dave Wilson forum)
Cost to cool the GH are about $400 per year. Cost to heat are highly dependent on crop being grown. The crop determines how much I need or want to heat. I could get by on $600 per year for stone fruit. But bump that up for Mango and now a Medjool date tree and it’s probably 1800 per year.
That’s much less than I expected. Thanks.
I may need a bigger greenhouse…!! The Medjool offshoot just arrived. It’s bigger and heavier than I expected. A bit over 5ft tall and that’s with most of the leaves cut back. It probably weighs 30-40 lbs.
I’m not planting it in the center where there would be 16ft of height. Rather about half way from center to outside wall. Height there is about 13ft sloping down to 6ft outside and 16ft center. It will likely be too big for that spot in no more than 10 years. But I may not last that long myself. And I’ll probably be tired of it before then.
I’ve got it soaking in a 30 gal barrel of water until it cools off a bit. They say to water it every two days until it roots in and starts producing new leaves. I’m supposed to keep the leaves tied up tight until then.
The Medjool pup is planted. Water soaks in really fast. Not like sand but nearly as fast. Two inches is gone in two minutes.
I wrapped the top in two layers of light weight frost blanket. The sun is very intense in this, the SW corner, of the greenhouse.
Looks good.I hope the top was wrapped and not warped.
Aren’t they grow into 40’ tree?
If the computer doesn’t complain, I’m good to go. That did look a bit weird…!!
Yes they do. And when they get too big to grow and harvest dates the farmers sell the trees as landscape specimens. Their equipment looks good up to about 30ft. At 40 ft it’s probably going into retirement.
I can hope to keep mine up to about 8-10ft. That will take about 10 years. I’ll likely be sick of dates before then. I’m just looking to see if it can be done in the same greenhouse with stone fruit and mango.
It’s something new and different. I’ll need to buy pollen to get fruit set. Then thin the fruit properly. And hope that I can mature the crop before the December chill cycle. It will be a new challenge.
Weird is one word I always have trouble with.Maybe it’s that singsong saying of i before e,except after c,taught to me in grade school.The English language is sometimes weird!
How long before your first medjools?
If the tree survives and grows well, I’d expect some chances of a small bunch in 2025. They are pretty precocious. Good fruit is probably a 26 or 27 event. My plan is to thin very heavily early on because over cropping can be an issue on small trees. At least that’s what I’ve been told.
