WowWee! You got some great gear there. I wish I had that. But I also need some land to dig in. I’d like a greenhouse to extend my potted fig season.
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We are hitting it hard today. I just purchased 6 of the 275 gallon ibc totes for $50 each. The cost was $25 for the delivery fee. Those are to catch water from the barn gutters.
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Wish I had a digger like that. Backhoe with 18” bucket is a bit slow. Spent like an hour digging a stump out…. But slow is still faster than not at all. How deep you going?
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That is 8’ down there. If you need to just add on a bit at a time. It does not have to be fast. As long as the section you are working on is done before the snow flys things are good. I have been impressed with what people accomplish with a plow or rototiller. A young man with a shovel can finish a 10’ ditch 8’ deep in about a week. I once did that with a house with a nice fence. When I was 20 they paid me to come in and shovel out a broken septic line by hand. The job paid well and I needed the money at the time. That ground was not as hard as this ground. This ground is very challenging to work like that without a machine.
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I love these updates.
I couldn’t imaging digging that much by hand. At least by me the soil a foot down is much more compacted. Spades and shovels do nothing, though with a mattock slow progress can be made.
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Thank you!
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I’m a little concerned about the drainage of the soil the trees will be growing in given how solid everything looks.
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The soil will be different, as you know citrus does not like that type of heavy dirt. Heavy dirt is a death sentence for citrus. It likes very light, acidic, high organic, sandy soil. The good news is earlier i fell without hurting myself. I landed on those iron pipes at the bottom of the ditch we cut. It was like I was laying down relaxing in front of the AC down there. It is around 100 degrees on the surface. I didn’t get up for a minute. I need to finish aligning these pipes in place. Putting these types of projects together takes a lot of work.
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I may have missed it if you said before, where are the big pipes (tubes) from? They appear recycled to me. (Cool!)
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Have had them for years. A friend gave them to me. I had saved them for a rainy day.
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Will your citrus trees be planted inground or in pots? If inground what kind of spacing are you considering? I’m thinking about spacing of citrus for my hopefully soon to be new greenhouse. Your thinking on this would be helpful.
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It depends on the citrus. Kumquat as you are aware and their hybrids stay very small. Those literally could be spaced practically on top of each other. Small owari or browns 3’-5’ on trifoliate. Any citrus on trifoliata rootstock will also be very small, typically 5-6’ . Grapefruit can be large, but I’m mostly growing dwarfs of everything. There are a few exceptions which can easily get 12’ +. The plants will be in ground to a degree. I thought i would build large concrete block planters to grow things in like a raised bed. For awhile I will keep most in grow bags. I plan to grow some other things like passion fruit , guava, banana , dates, olives, longan, avacodo, and lychee. I wanted to grow some harder things for fun. I was very selective of varities. 30 gallon grow bags are likely sufficient for most citrus. A 5 or 10 gallon bag is likely plenty big enough for small kumquats. This soil is very alkaline and clay which is everything citrus hates in soil. I will be using a blend of cow manure , wood chips , sand etc. To create a combo these types of plants like. Im currently using potting soil to grow them in.
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Awesome. I started on mine in July and this thread is helping keep me motivated. I think I’ll start a thread myself, like a journal, maybe help people who want to do something like is and learn from my mistakes.
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That is a great idea. It is really interesting to see how everyone is constructing these.
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Yes, please! 
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@clarkinks I’m enjoying watching your project and hope to start one soon. Do you have a tree source? And what is your soil like that you will grow in?
Being a small buyer I’m stuck with what Lowe’s or home depo have regarding rootstock, especially citrus which cannot be shipped to Texas. It’s usually whatever Saxon becnel and sons sells to Lowe’s which is c22 or kuhaski. I can never find anything specific for high alkaline soils.with peaches I only get Lovell or nemaguard. Even the well known sources mentioned here have limited rootstock selection.
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