I wasn’t thinking of doing mango I was just interested in his process. LOL
ETA sometimes I respond quickly without clarifying my intent properly.
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That is very clever. What varieties are you experimenting?
Are you growing fruit commercially now? How far are you from Austin? My son just moved there and he’d love to have bragging rights of eating better tasting fruit than I do. He’d probably take a long drive for the pleasure of eating and bragging.
I’m just getting lined to to grow mango. I’ll start with seedlings. I have six started. Then after they get established I’ll graft to many different varieties. There’s a place in FL with 300 to chose from.
I’m barely growing enough for myself and friends right now. The greenhouse is full of figs. I used to sell at the local farmers market. Maybe in a few yrs I’ll be back to an excess. I’m 300 miles or more west of Austin.
Dimitri,
Was scrolling through and just happened to see the link to our farm (Threefold Farm). We’ve done a little calculating on our end as to the break even, and you’re right, it’s tricky and depends a lot on what you’re trying to grow, your climate, and other factors. We estimate it at around 4-9 years for a commercial farm: Climate Battery - Costs & ROI — Atmos Greenhouse Systems
Btw, if the above link is too commercial for the forum, I will certainly remove it. I certainly want to respect the forum but also be helpful.
I haven’t taken any pics recently, but our figs are pushing out in both of our greenhouses and @fruitnut is right, it’s an excellent environment for fruit, even in the northeast. Heating costs are certainly one of the things that can put a damper on that though, depending on what you’re trying to grow. I’ll see if I can get a pic of them sometime this week.
With a little added heat we can accumulate a lot of chill hours without risking too much freezing in the greenhouse. Keeping condensation and rain off helps a ton too. We’ve seen a few pest issues in the greenhouse that we don’t experience in the field, but nothing too worrisome. Time will tell of course, but it looks promising. Scale has been the primary issue on our figs but with some attention it’s been pretty well controlled.
Tim
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Such an inspiration!
My greenhouse is just ribs at the moment.
The screenhouse orchard is doing well - currently without screen to allow pollinators - hope to install before the curculios come out but will have to hand pollinate the late apples and pears.
I just modified the drip system to a circle of dripline - so the entire rootball receives water.
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@timclymer You gave a very nice setup at your fig GH orchard. I wonder, aren’t you concerned about fig roots interfering with the underground tubes? Could they overtime penetrate those tubes?
@Ahmad Good question!
I don’t think it will be a problem. The tubes are air filled, so even if the roots did get close, they should be air pruned. They’re also down quite a ways into the soil, and figs tend to be shallow rooted.
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