most people would not think 100% pure limon juice is good either. I would blend trifoliate at least 1 part to 10 parts other juice then you get something peaty tasty.
@Kaki-pistacia everyone thinks of that and like crossbreeding chestnuts to be resistant to blight like a alchemist making the Philosophers stone.
That is the information i am looking to find out when i make this type of post. When people make a claim of cold hardy citrus to 0 degrees or close to it we all want the truth about it.
I was gifted about a dozen Flying Dragon, some of them +5 feet tall, 3 years ago. Only 5 of them survived the transplant. Two of them flowered this past summer so Iām hoping that they fruit this year.
I am considering getting Arctic Frost Satsuma and growing it in a large pot so that I can bring it in over the winter.
Maybe you can make some crosses. Decent citrus is hardy to 20 degrees but others say at least 10 to 15 degrees. Some Trifoliata are hardy to at least -15 degrees briefly. We are close to true cold hardy citrus. They say -20F but it depends on the seedling half of mine died long before -15F.
There arenāt a ton of nurseries selling the Arctic Frost Satsuma. Edible Landscape has it listed, but itās out of stock. There are a few other nurseries that also have it listed. Iām not familiar with them.
It may have been mine, or it may be genetic bitterness sensitivity, but the makrut lime juice from my tree, looked and smelled great, but ruined my taste buds for hours. It wasnāt just an unpleasant taste. I tasted it undiluted, fwiw.
Iāve looked into citrus I can grow Zone 7a near Philly off and on for at least a year now and not seen much, outside of very optimistic people on the west coast who would like to sell you a tree, suggesting thereās much of anything worth growing entirely outdoors in the ground.
Trifoliate orange/Flying dragon seems to survive unprotected in New Jersey:
Weird Explorer on YT did a video on TFO (can that be the abbreviation? A quick search suggests itās not being used)
A sales pitch of, āThe fruit is tiny and sour, but itās also hairy, bitter, and may make you sick for a few days after eating it. Also, itās about 50% seeds.ā isnāt tempting me to place an order.
Grapefruit is known to have dangerous interactions with some drugs, I wouldnāt be surprised if its the bitter citrus compounds responsible for the effect.
@evilpaul This is a neighborās tree growing in Washington DC. Survived several polar vortexes unharmed. it has to be 30+ years old. Trifoliate official hardiness is Zone 5
The flavonoid that interacts with medication is Bergamottin. largely found in bergamont orange the one used to flavor earl gray tea, but also in grapefruits and pomelos.
Citrus Pepeda, The other true citrus family. Korean and Japanese largely. One of the most popular hybrids of it is Citrus Hystrix, eg Markut/Thai lime, formerly Kaffir(derogatory) lime. And Yuzu.
Thais obviously didnt desire the cold hardyness of Pepedaās but there many many tasty flavonoids.
@fruitnut ā¦ that 5 deg of protection he got was with 1 string of incandescent lightsā¦ he said he was going to double the lightsā¦
I also know that since that video he has added 60 gal black pickle barrels in between his citrus and avacadoā¦ to soak up heat during the day and release it at night.
I have my lettuce hot bed (cold frame) where i can cover it with floating row coverā¦ or even add extra covers on very cold nights. And have 2 strings of white incadescent christmas lights (300 small bulbs total) suspended over my lettuce crop. Just before Christmas it survived unharmed with low of 3F and 4 days below feeezing.
I think that most lettuce can survive mid 20s.
But i expect there would be some damage.
Mine had no damage at all.
It seems that my heat gain in the hot bed must have been 10-15 F ??
Not sureā¦ but we are still eating fresh lettuce greens after a low of 3F and 4 days below freezing (mostly in the teens and low 20s).
Cloches were used many years ago when people needed to live off the land all the time. In my childhood i was blessed with no trash service in my area it taught me this when i was young. One day i was walking where a neighbor dumped garbage in their ditches and came across an old glass jar in the winter. Much to my surprise everything was green inside that jar. That was something to look at given it was snowing outside. Saw several more in that same dump with green grass in them. Didnāt take me long to think about bigger jars and vegetables. When i saw my first aquarium at a neibors property i watched those fish a long time realizing there was not much we couldnāt do. A few years later i saw my first green house.
@clarkinks ā¦ i will read thru that when i get some timeā¦ thanks.
I do not have a greenhouse and doubt i ever will.
I do like the idea of having a much nicer cold frameā¦ and plan to work on that this next year and have it ready by fall.
One advantage to a cold frame seems to beā¦ all it takes to get greens to survive our winters here is turning on a few Christmas lights a few nights each winter.
Sounds like you have excellent lettuce. You dont really need a greenhouse. Your doing fantastic as it is in my opinion. If you want to have something fancier later you always can. Much of the time with turnips or lettuce we did nothing more than covered them with plastic.
