Hello everyone. This is my first post on this forum. My name is Tim McCord and I live in northeast Alabama. I have been successfully growing citrus in ground here since 1995. To do this I assemble a greenhouse over my in ground trees each fall and remove it each spring. I number some of the greenhouse parts to keep things simple when I reassemble it. I use a greenhouse heater with a thermostat that I set to keep the temperature just above 32°during cold events. I am not an expert by any means but I have been somewhat successful. This looks like a great place to learn about citrus and I hope to learn a lot from you all. You can click on the link below my signature line if you wish to see pics of my trees.
Best wishes, Tim McCord.

Welcome Tim.
Beautiful trees you have there.

Thanks for making me feel welcome and for the complement on my trees. I am new here so I am still trying to find my way around the forum.

Tim, welcome to The Citrus Growers Forum. We are excited that you have become a member, and hope you remain an active member for a long time. Looking at your pictures, I can see you have been very successful growing your trees, they all look very healthy. Thank you for joining.
Sincerely,
Millet

Thank you Millet for the warm welcome. I’m still browsing around the board and finding a lot of things of great interest to me. I hope to participate here for a long time.

TimM Welcome from South Georgia. Your trees are very Impressive.

Thank you Hershell. I need to build a larger greenhouse.

Tim it looks as if you already have an unfair advantage, although I have built several in Alabama.

I need every unfair advantage I can get. LOL.

Miss living in Alabama. Lived in Auburn(Yes a War Eagle), then Birmingham now I am in Southeast GA. I only have to cover my trees Few days every year but sometimes I think it is a bigger pain than building a nice greenhouse like you have.

Randy

Hi Randy. Funny that you mentioned Auburn. I spend some time there because my son attends college there. In fact, he left about 10 minutes ago to head back there. It's true that I don’t have to worry about my trees very much but I would trade my set up for a warmer climate anytime. Maybe we have the coldest days of this winter behind us.
Tim.

Welcome to the forum from central Alabama. I am a war eagle too. Your tunnel green house is great. I am trying something like it with two layers of freeze cloth and large Christmas tree lights. How far between your trees, how long is your structure,how wide between cross ties,what size PVC pipe and what kind of heater is that? I notice the highly efficient rodent catching mammal ! Have you seen Dr. Powell's orangerie near Jemison Al ? It's closed on Monday's and is called Petals From The Past. No pictures on line that I know of yet. It's an Atlas very much like Millett's. Your oranges are an encouragement to me. The grapefruit is too. I did not know we could do stuff like that this far north with a tunnel in the winter only....WOW....great job. I am sick of this winter. War Eagle. I got caught in Scottsdale picking a Honey Bell from a yard tree beside the golf course. I am so embarrassed but it was sorta like Adam and Eve . I was very weak. Golf was great and so was the orange and the game too.

Tom It’s good to know so many of us share the same interest in citrus and that I am located near many of you. I wish you the best on your greenhouse. I’ll try to answer your questions the best I can. First of all my trees are planted way too close together. Starting at the east end wall it is about 4’ to my first navel orange tree, 10’ to the Satsuma, 10’ to the second navel, 10’ to the Eureka Lemon, 5’ to the Valencia Orange, 5’ to the Duncan Grapefruit, and 4’ to the west end wall. The second navel orange was tagged as a Valencia when I bought it but it turned out to be a navel. I later bought a true Valencia and I had nowhere left to plant it so I put in between the lemon and grapefruit. I also have another lemon tree off to one side just pass the first navel tree. The greenhouse is 48’ long and I think it is about 12’ between the ties. I used 1” sch 40 PVC pipe that I cut to 18& ½’ in length. I designed the greenhouse so I could use a 20’ X 100’ roll of plastic that is carried by the big home improvement stores. The heater is an aluminum greenhouse heater made by Southern Burner. I can give you more details in a PM if you wish. I haven’t seen the orangerie near Jemison but I would like to check it out. Thanks for the kind words about the citrus. I bring in an armful of citrus almost every night for my family and I to enjoy. That was kind of funny about you getting caught picking the Honey Bell. It sounds like something that would happen to me. War eagle. Tim.