Laaz,
Yes Sudachi might be interesting. Ideally I would like to add a variety that can be used as a lemon or lime substitute where the fruit are ready to use sometime between late June to early Sept. I had also been thinking of Citrus glauca... At UCR they are ripe between May and July, I bet they would be at least 1 to 2 months later here in MA. The Razzlequat (eremolemon/eremowhat, whatever) was also on my list, but I've seen comments that it might not be a very heavy producer and may not taste very good.

Gold Nugget might be fun to try, it would be nice to have fresh mandarins in the late spring/early summer. I'd have to run the aquarium heaters more to keep the fruit from freezing...

Tim, I'm pretty sure I can get at least one more year out of the current setup if I have to. The total height right now is about 3.5 ft. I can easily make it ~1 ft taller. The tree is currently ~6-8 inches below the roof, so I would have ~1.5ft for additional growth. However, I may change the design to something that looks a little nicer, it's pretty ugly right now.

Ultimately I should be able to expand this idea to protect trees up to ~6 ft tall.

I had a ~4 inch thick layer of ice form in the exterior water barrels. There is one interior water barrel that did not freeze (the water in this barrel got down to just under 34F)

There's a satsuma under there somewhere!



For scale, the retaining wall to the right is 4-4.5ft tall, the snow is drifting. Total accumulation so far around 20-24inches and 3-5inches more are still expected.

The snow cover over the enclosure actually allowed the internal temp to increase overnight from around 33.5F to near 34.5F. At the same time, the outside temp dropped from 32F to 16F.

Time to fire up the snow blower!

I don't miss that stuff.

I don't actually mind... I enjoy having a true winter, it would just be nice if it was 1-2 months shorter!
My kids want me to make a snow slide, they love it! I should be able to make one that is at least 5ft high using the snow blower.

You have the snow storm & we will be sunny and almost 70F today

Scott,

your citrus look nice and warm.

My Citrumelo protection was buried too:



My power went out for 35 hours so my Citrumelo had no supplemental heating and we dropped to -2.9F (-19.4C).......I hope it's not damaged??



Western Red Cedars were not happy in all the snow:


Southern Magnolia 'Edith Bogue' was not happy either:


My Poncirus trifoliata was happy as a calm:

I wish we could have gotten that snow. It would have really helped with our moisture. The wheat would have loved it. - Millet

My freezer has never got that cold....Brrrr... It will be interesting how your citrumelos pull through.

Citrumelo related:
We had similar low temp last winter.
Under a weak cover, close to the house wall, I had a bunch of 2-3+ y old seedlings planted into ground: Ichang lemons, Rusk Citranges, Citrumelos, one PT.

Aftermath:
PT had no problem, as expected.
Ichang lemons gone.
Rusk citranges: only one left and with hard frost bites, have some regrowth, very weak.
Citrumelos: defoliated, branches died-back, frost bites above trunk base.
However, citrumelos recovered reasonably well.

Seedlings uncovered mid March and that was wrong, too early.
My the best advice: Keep your Citrumelo protected from sun/shaded until mid April at least.

My freezer runs at -2F (-19C), so that's cold!
Tim, I'm surprised you got that cold after the big snow! You're very close to the south coast of MA/RI, which should be be nearly identical to (if not warmer than) my location north of Boston. The only thing I can think of is that you are stuck on the edge of that cold spot centered around Taunton, MA. I find it amusing that the NWS has their official weather center office for eastern MA in the coldest possible location in eastern MA.

The three closest Personal Weather Stations (PWS) to my house on WeatherUnderground registered lows of 11.0, 11.7, and 11.8F (approx. -11.5C) on Feb. 10. Logan airport had a low of 15F, at my house I measured a low of 15.4F (-9.2C). Although, I'm inclined to believe my temp was closer to 12F than 15F, as some snow cover may have been partially insulating my temp. sensor.

As of today, February has been much easier on my citrus protection.

Overall, my Satsuma still appears to be doing well. Although, there are some signs of minor frost damage on a few leaves from the last growth flush in the fall/late summer (late Aug./Sept.). It looks like my biggest problem may be figuring out how to lower the interior humidity just a little.

So far in Feb. the lowest temp inside the enclosure has been 30.7F (-0.7C) and it has only spent a total of 5 hours at or below 32F. For comparison, in Jan. it got down to 27.6F (-2.4C) inside and was below 32F for ~100 hours.

It has not been cold enough inside the enclosure for the aquarium heaters to turn on. At this point it is unlikely that we will get any weather colder than what occurred in Jan., so the whole setup will most likely make it all the way through winter without needing any supplemental heat.

It looks like about half of the snow has already melted!

Great job. Our lowest temp so far this year was 28F.

Laaz, say no more
we Northlanders are going to make a snowman from you, this way: