I have my Early St. Ann satsuma all packed in and ready for its first New England winter. The tree has recovered nicely with two growth flushes since losing ~75% of its leaves after receiving it in the mail in May. It is surrounded by ~300 gal of water and an old double pane glass patio door for protection. Time will tell how well it fares...

Here it is in mid Oct. The single fruit was puffy and of poor quality.


Here it is on Nov. 3rd/4th, when I enclosed it. The first killing frost/freeze was just a few days later on Nov. 6.

Wow, Scott. You have done an exceptional job protecting your satsuma. Makes me feel guilty being able to grow my citrus as easily as I do. I sure understand, though, I did spend 10 years in zone 5, in N. Indiana! Really love being back home in sunny So Cal!!

Thanks, The whole thing didn't really take too long to set-up. Most of my time was spent leveling the ground for the water barrels, which I shouldn't have to do again. The bigger question will be figuring out how to efficiently empty the barrels in spring without turning my planting bets into a mud wrestling pit! You shouldn't feel guilty about being in a citrus growing area, half the fun for me is figuring out how to keep everything safely protected in the winter.

Why did you not paint the water pails black to absorb the sun's heat? White reflects light, thus heat, away.- Millet

Millet, I have read and enjoyed most if not all of your posts about this subject on the forums. There is a lot of solid thought and arithmetic behind your reasoning. To answer your question, absolutely I have considered painting the barrels black, which would help keep the interior a little warmer. I think this strategy provides a clear benefit for situations like your greenhouse to reduce winter heating costs. My house is in a warm 6b/cold 7a microclimate ~100 yards from the ocean. I am not sure it is necessary to worry about absorbing additional solar radiation given the typical temperature fluctuations in my area and specific siting of my enclosure. In any case, I do have plans to test this if necessary (see discussion below).

As a test last winter I made a similar cold frame. The coldest internal temp I observed was 27-28 deg on a day with a low temp of 6-7 deg. Over the entire winter the internal temp only dropped below 32 deg on 2 or 3 nights. The vast majority of the time, the lowest daily internal air temperature was somewhere in the 30s or 40s (the high temps ranged between the low 40s and 80s inside). From these data I am reasonably confident that the enclosure could keep the internal air temperature in the 20s even if the exterior temperature drops to -5 deg. overnight. If we consistently had sub zero temps in winter, I would be more worried about absorbing as much solar radiation as possible. I have some dark brown corrugated metal roofing panels ready to place on the south facing side of the enclosure if I need them and I can also put a few 5 gal buckets of hot water inside in an emergency.

(temps in the discussion below are in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit... didn't want to bother converting from metric)
Also, I do not care if some of the water in the barrels freezes. This is actually a good thing for keeping the internal temperature up within a few deg. of freezing (but slightly below freezing) on very cold nights. The heat capacity of water is ~4.2 J/gK i.e. 4.2 joules of heat energy is released per gram of water for every deg. Kelvin (or Celsius) that the temperature of the water drops. In contrast, the enthalpy of fusion of water (in this case, the energy needed to freeze liquid water at 0 deg Celsius) is ~330 J/g. So freezing 1 gram of water at 0 deg releases 75-80 times more heat energy than cooling the same mass of water by 1 deg C. Of course, to melt the ice all of that energy needs to be put back in to the system. This is where more effective absorption of solar radiation would help, time will tell if this is necessary.

Cheers
-Scott

The best to you and your tree. - Millet

any updates?

Not much to update yet... I was planning on putting together a more detailed update when some colder weather sets in. Dec. has been pretty warm so far, with the coldest temp at my house of 28 deg., although the NWS now has a low of 25 in my 7 day forecast.

The Satsuma briefly went down to 36 deg one night, but it has mostly been in the 40s inside the enclosure. This is pretty much exactly what it would be if I was using a 35/45 thermocube and heating cables for supplemental heat.

We will see how it does once the real cold arrives.

Cheers
-Scott

My fingers are crossed for your Satsuma Scott
What is the root stock and what height do you expect to maintain?
Did you get this from Stan? It's very nice!

for what it is worth I picked my last 4 satusmas today................it has been pretty mild my way also , well done to 16f or so

In the photo of your tree pictured in your above post, a I see a baseball hat with the words "Tarpon Springs". This must represent Tarpon Springs, Florida. If so there is a really fantastic Greek restaurant, in Tarpon Springs, which if I remember correctly is named Papa's Restarunt. It is a huge restaurant which can hold hundreds of patrons. Tarpon Springs is an old sponge port,where one can purchase sponges of all types. The day I was there, it must have been a Christian Feast day, as the local Priest tossed a Crucifix off the dock into the sea water. There upon, all the young boys dived into the sea water trying to find it and retrieve it. The lucky kid that was the first diver to locate it and bring it back up, got to keep the Crucifx and of course was looked upon with great honor. Very nice town, I really enjoyed my visit there. - Millet

Ha! I was wondering if anybody would notice the hat... I didn't realize it was in the picture until I went to upload it. I've been to Tarpon Springs a couple times to visit relatives that moved there five or six years ago. It is a really nice area, but personally I prefer the Sarasota area better. I lived in Sarasota for a while in the late 1990s. It was just far enough south that there was never any freezing weather the entire time I was there.

Oh I also believe that Pappas restaurant closed several years ago.

Cheers
-Scott

That is a nice setup that I might actually try myself!
But what will you do when the tree becomes larger? Trim it to fit the actual setup or increase the size of the setup?

Marc,
I wouldn't jump in to try this quite yet, I still don't know if it's actually going to work. We'll see how it is come spring.

I hope to be able to let the tree grow out to somewhere between 5 and 6 ft (~1.5-1.75 m). The idea will to build a taller wall of water and then put a small cold frame on top. Ideally I want to use these for the walls since they are modular like Legos: (http://www.waterbrick.org/outdoor-uses.php and http://www.waterbrick.org/home-page.php) Unfortunately, the waterbricks are not cheap, so I'm starting w/ 35 gallon water barrels first.

-Scott

"North Shore Massachusetts" Sott send me about 10 doz littlenecks!