Florida Doesn't Want You To Know It's EASIER To Grow CITRUS Up NORTH! How To Grow Citrus ANYWHERE!

what's going on gardeners it's saturday april 9th and it is a gorgeous spring day here on the southeastern coast of north carolina when you think of the state of florida what do you usually think of most people usually think of sunshine beaches warm weather all year round then there's something else what is it oh yeah these citrus in fact the florida orange is practically the mascot of the state of florida but i'm here to tell you something that the state of florida does not want you to know growing citrus is easier way up here than it is down in the state of florida and if you are north of florida there's a really good chance that you can grow citrus in your backyard even more easily than they can in florida and i'm going to show you exactly why and exactly how if you're new to the channel please consider subscribing and hitting the bell to receive new video notifications and check out our amazon storefront and spreadshop in the video description for a list of the gardening products i use and awesome custom designed apparel and other gear your support is greatly appreciated the state of florida has had a massive thriving citrus industry in the united states for over a century and that's because most of the united states is too cold geographically speaking and climatically speaking for commercial citrus production out in the open with no protection florida's climate on the other hand is overwhelmingly perfect for growing citrus now for those of you who don't know citrus trees originate from asia they were imported here a very very very long time ago and because florida had the ideal climate for growing citrus they were planted widespread throughout the state for commercial cultivation that industry thrived for over a century because those citrus trees were brought over here and florida was basically a clean room for growing citrus there weren't citrus diseases there there weren't citrus pests there so they grew and grew and grew into a massive agricultural industry undisturbed for countless decades however recently something happened an asian citrus psyllid called hlb which i'm not even going to attempt to pronounce recently made its way over to the united states and that asian citrus psyllid has overwhelmed the citrus industry down in florida and it's causing tremendous amounts of damage and that's for a couple of reasons that's because number one it's an invasive species here in the united states because it doesn't have natural predators here like it does over in asia but number two it's mostly the problem with the citrus industry itself because citrus grew so well in florida for so long that they just mono cropped it all they bulldozed hundreds if not thousands of acres and planted all of the citrus in a perfectly straight line so when we finally got an invasive species here we wound up creating an all-you-can-eat buffet for those those invasive species to just eat and multiply and overwhelm the area that is really the problem with monocropping and why culturally speaking it is bad practice because while it does well for a very long time until some kind of disease or pest problem rears its ugly head once the pest and disease problem hits it just winds up decimating the entire industry there's no polyculture there so once those pests and diseases find it it's just an all you can eat buffet and it is a slaughter and that's what's going on right now in florida what the asian citrus psyllid does this hlb disease is once the bug bites into the tree itself or the fruit on the tree it transmits a bacteria into the tree and it makes those trees permanently infected and as a result they yield poor quality fruit once the trees are infected they'll make fruit that won't ripen properly it'll stay green or green in patches that's why it's called citrus greening because of the green patches and blotches and the improper ripening that will happen to the citrus and as a result generally inedible and it is destroying the citrus industry down in florida because the monocropping citrus culture of florida is so pervasive it has caused an explosion in the overall population of these bugs and as a result they also make their way to backyard gardeners so for backyard gardeners just growing a few citrus trees in their backyard in florida they often find themselves becoming infected with the disease as well and as i previously mentioned once the tree gets infected there's no cure known to date so all you have to do is just get contact with this hlb once and then it will wind up infecting your tree and you'll have this problem for forever because of this citrus greening problem florida is no longer the wonderful place to grow citrus that it used to be however one thing i'm happy to say is up here where i live citrus greening will never be a problem and that is because where i live it is way too cold to grow commercial citrus you just can't do it however for the backyard gardeners you are in luck after experimenting with various different varieties of citrus for years here in my backyard in north carolina i have discovered that the best places to grow citrus are zones 8a 8b and 9a for the backyard gardener and the reason why is these zones are far too cold with too frequent regularity for serious commercial citrus production and because of that when we bring citrus up to these northern limits where large commercial monocropping operations cannot function we are basically growing in a clean room i live in zone 8a and here there will never be that hlb citrus greening problem because we won't have those big monocropping operations in order to perpetuate that hlb species there will never be enough citrus trees here no matter what to sustain that population so if you live in north carolina south carolina georgia the north the most northern outskirts of florida where citrus generally isn't cultivated alabama mississippi louisiana texas arkansas maybe even areas like virginia beach really mild zones there and other zone 8a 8b and 9a climates maybe even in the pacific northwest you are actually growing in wonderful areas to grow citrus because here they are basically pest and disease free the only thing you have to worry about of course is cold weather ask any citrus grower down in florida what is easier to protect against pests disease or cold and the overwhelming majority of them will tell you it is way easier to protect against cold weather than it is to protect against pests and disease pest and disease pressure is almost impossible to protect against once they start getting going cold is a really simple problem and i have many ways that you can protect against cold outbreaks here in zone 8a north carolina we usually average somewhere between 30 to 40 frost and freeze events every single year however the overwhelming majority of citrus varieties particularly sweet citrus like your oranges the lemons and limes are a little less hardy the overwhelming majority of citrus is hardy to about 28 degrees and they will not take damage in most cases so once you deduct those 28 to 32 degree frost events from that total collective number we probably only get about a dozen or so events a year where temperatures will drop below 28 degrees so there's really only about a dozen events that we really have to worry about here in zone 8a and if you live in zone 8b or zone 9a there's going to be even less of those events that you have to contend with so step one of being a backyard citrus grower in a virtually pest and disease free environment with few to no problems is to make sure that you select varieties that can simply tolerate a 28 degree freeze event or lower and most varieties will fall within that limit right here i'm holding a morrow blood orange a blood orange can tolerate into the mid to low 20s once they're established before they really start taking damage if you grow kumquats or you grow mandarin oranges and satsumas they can tolerate all the way down into the teens and then there are also things like your harvey lemons and your your meyer lemons that can tolerate very briefly down to about 20 degrees or a very brief cold shot into the teens as well once they are established so there are a ton of high quality commercial quality citrus varieties out there that can tolerate deep into the 20s and even the upper teens then at that point you only really have to worry about providing very basic protection which anybody can do in their backyard to protect against those 10 to 15 or so cold nights a year that could be problematic and i'm going to show you how to do that right now this tree right here is the queen of my garden and i've been showcasing this tree for years it is my owari satsuma it is on its fourth season right now and this tree is absolutely incredible its first year in ground it gave me four oranges its second year in ground gave me 50 oranges and last december this tree gave me a hundred oranges of incredible commercial quality some of the best citrus i've ever had in my entire life and i'm growing it right here in zone 8a north carolina once established and mature this variety can tolerate temperatures around 12 to 15 degrees fahrenheit and we got down to 14 degrees fahrenheit this winter we had a 14 degree low and an 18 degree low and this tree took no damage at all and i hedge my bets simply by covering it in incandescent lights and then putting a plant jacket on top of it this easily provides five to ten degrees of warmth every single night and i also planted it up against the southern brick wall of my house as a micro climate because the radiative heat of the bricks also provide additional warmth i've been telling you for years how to protect your trees with this method and i'll make sure to link to a video above that shows you exactly how to do that it's so easy and the wonderful thing about the plant jackets are because they're breathable and have about an eighty percent uv transmission rate you could actually put the lights on in november and then put the plant jackets on top of that and you can leave the jackets on for weeks or months at a time and not have to worry about the cold then when you know it's going to drop into the low 20s you simply turn the lights on and you have no problems and just look at the hundreds if not thousands of blooms on this tree this is absolutely incredible and again this is only going on its fourth season i'm going to have more oranges next year off this tree then i'll know what to do with this is a dwarf grafted tree it's grafted onto trifoliate root stock and i got this tree and all of my craft is citrus i get from stan mckenzie from mackenzie farms in scranton south carolina so definitely check him out if you need some grafted citrus they are of absolute amazing quality and i know i'm going to have yet another incredible harvest off of this tree and the possibilities don't just end at oranges you can grow lemons too this is my amazing meyer lemon tree i planted it in ground about a season and a half ago so this is going to be its second full season in ground third season collectively and it's already giving me fruit and it's covered in thousands of blossoms just look at this thing it is absolutely loaded next year is going to be an incredible lemon year here in north carolina and just to show you what this amazing incredible fruit looks like just look at this thing that is a lemon right there that is a meyer lemon it's practically the size of a grapefruit you can see it compared to my blood orange and this is just one of the best quality lemons that you will ever have the juice is incredible you could practically make an entire pie out of one of these you don't even need electricity and incandescent lights to protect your citrus trees there are other ways that you can do it completely free and using no electricity at all here in the back of my yard i have three citrus trees planted and i'm using the warmth of 60 gallon repurposed pickle barrels that i have filled with water and that provides a radiative heat source with a blanket over them on cold nights now i've showed you how to do this before and i will link to a video above that shows you how to do that all i do is when it's going to be in the 20s i throw a frost blanket over all of these and i put bricks down to make sure it doesn't blow off this provides 10 degrees of protection which i have measured through that wireless thermometer underneath that solar cover right there so when we got down to 14 degrees it stayed in the mid to upper 20s under here and all of these cold hearty varieties of citrus did great this tree right here is a karakara red navel orange this is hardy to the low to mid 20s and it sailed through our 14 degree freeze with no problem at all and this tree has only been in ground for about eight to nine months it's a new fresh graph from stan mckenzie and just look at this thing it is loaded with hundreds if not thousands of flowers and they are all starting to turn into little oranges right there it's going to take every little bit of self-control for me to thin this down to about four to six oranges because it will overbear if i let it so i really need to exercise self-control and thin it down once the fruit really starts setting but just look at this thing absolutely incredible thriving here as a little baby tree in zone 8a using nothing more than this heat of this pickle barrel full of water right here i picked that pickle barrel up from a hardware store for 25 bucks you can find them on craigslist they're always being given away on there on local craigslist listings you can grow something like this in zone eight if you're willing to put forth just a little bit of effort on cold nights then right here we have this miwa kumquat this has only been in ground for maybe about eight or nine months as well all three of these citrus varieties were planted at the exact same time i harvested a few dozen kumquats off of this tree last year this tree is hardy to about 14 to 15 degrees once it's established and mature as is so if you live in zone 8b or 9a you'll pretty much never have to protect this at all if you live in 8a like i do these water barrels right here are more than enough protection this took absolutely no damage in that 14 degree freeze in between the water barrels with a simple blanket draped over it in fact in some milder zone 7bs i think you can grow this in ground they fruit right away and the fruit is delicious with no hint of sourness at all if you like the sour kumquats you can get a nagami kumquat it's just as hearty as this one then right here we have a brown select satsuma this is basically an earlier version of the owari satsuma this will give me fruit two to three weeks earlier every single fall and again this has only been in ground for eight to nine months and it is just absolutely loaded with fruit when these are established and mature they're cold hardy to about 12 to 15 degrees they'll need very little cover except on only the coldest nights here in zone 8. if you live in zone 7b a warmer zone 7b you may be able to get away with this as well and again you'll see how profusely this is fruiting uh it is flowering and it will turn into fruit you can see some fruits that uh that are forming inside the flowers there and again this is going to take all my self-control to thin it down this is just a little fledgling baby tree and it did just fantastic in our in our several lows in the teens this past cold winter just using these uh these pickle barrels as protection and if you live in zones colder than 8a or extremely mild 7bs and you think maybe this video isn't for you i'm here to tell you that citrus also grow great in containers this is my morrow blood orange i've left this exposed outside down to 26 27 degrees fahrenheit and it took no damage at all at those temperatures but it probably will start taking damage in the low 20s i probably could put this in ground here but you can see how well a three-year-old tree grows in containers this gave me probably 50 blood oranges this year it was absolutely gorgeous then behind me i have an excalibur red lime this is a this is a hybrid between we think a rang per lime and a kumquat so the the the rind is sweet like a kumquat but the interior is sour like a lime this is supposed to be hardy to the upper teens low twenties i've never had this damaged by cold i'm considering to maybe grow it in ground one day but the point i'm trying to make here is these overwinter great indoors if you live in zones six or seven maybe even zone five you can park these right in front of a sunny south facing window or if you're lucky enough to have a sun room over winter them indoors and then when it starts getting warm again the frost and freezes stop you carry them outside slowly acclimate them so they don't get burnt in the transition from indoor light to full spectrum sun carry them out slowly over the course of one to two weeks and then once they're fully acclimated to the sun you will basically have a pest and disease free tree that only needs water and fertilizer to keep growing they grow excellent in containers especially dwarf grafted varieties so i'm here to tell you that you don't need to be a resident of florida or california or south texas in order to grow amazing citrus varieties in fact here slightly north of their native range where they require a little bit of cold protection here and there on some of the coldest nights of the year you're rewarded by basically growing them in a completely pest and disease free environment sure we do have a few pests here and there there are things like citrus leaf miner there are things like citrus rust mites they will get mites and leaf miner here and there but that's so easy to fix they're such minor weak pests you buy yourself a natural pyrethrin that i have linked in my amazon storefront you spray the tree once a week for a couple of weeks and it's going to knock out the infestation it's so easy to defend or protect against those sort of things we don't really have any major pests here so they just grow like weeds undisturbed that is your reward for putting in just a little bit of effort on those really cold nights you basically get a maintenance free incredibly fast fruiting delicious fruit tree throughout the growing season and just to give you some kind of example as to what kind of great quality citrus we can grow here this is the blood orange that i harvested off of my potted tree and look at that right there absolutely gorgeous there's a couple of seeds in there usually there are less seeds than that but that is just a gorgeous looking fruit let's also try the this massive meyer lemon show you what that looks like and that is literally just dripping with juice look at all the juice coming out of there now because last year was its first bearing year the fruits are just absolutely enormous this year because i'm going to have a lot more fruit set the fruits will be a more reasonable size but you can see the amazing quality that we have here when i get more fruit i will have less pith in that rind and it'll be more like what you're used to seeing when meyer lemons are in season at the grocery store and then side by side this is kind of what you can expect the lemon versus the blood orange and to give you some type of taste test of this blood orange these are so unbelievably good i've bought blood oranges for years and years in the grocery store and they are nothing like this these are so much more delicious there's so much more acid there's so much more sugar they're just absolutely incredible you have to grow your own citrus years ago i received a comment from a viewer that lived down in florida that said you're so lucky to live up there because you can grow citrus and as funny as that sounded at the time it really is true here in these marginal climates if you're just willing to put in a little bit of effort on those really cold nights and you get your citrus trees through those nights you can grow in conditions that florida growers can only dream of because there are so few things that can go wrong once you make it through those handful of cold nights every single year so i hope this is motivating to you if you live in zone 8a 8b and 9a you can really have an amazing backyard citrus food forest that growers in florida could only dream of so everybody i sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit the like button subscribe to the channel and ring that notification bell so you're notified when we release more videos like these if you're curious about growing citrus please check out my other citrus videos or ask any questions that you have down in the comments and i will do my best to direct you to an appropriate source of information while you're there please check out my amazon storefront down in the video description to learn all of the things i use in my garden many of the things that i use like my plant jackets my natural pesticides that i use for growing citrus as well as other things i use to keep them warm are all linked there and while you're down there check out my spreadshop link for custom merch if you want to support the channel thank you all so much for watching and i hope to see all of you again on the next video it's almost 11 o'clock and it's time to take dale out for his last potty but he is just so comfy on the couch he's not going to want to get up hey dale you want to go potty no dad no please don't make me get up i'm so comfy dale you ready to go potty potty time last party of the night dad can't you see the couch is reserved for the dog i don't want to get up and go potty i'm so comfy come on mr whiskers it's time to go potty come on bud let's go potty come on dale party time my poor boy he's got it so rough

Channel: The Millennial Gardener

Views: 157,920

Keywords: grow citrus, growing citrus, growing citrus trees, growing citrus trees in ground, growing citrus in florida, how to grow citrus, cold hardy citrus, grow citrus anywhere, citrus trees, citrus tree, citrus, citrus greening, hlb, citrus varieties, florida, florida citrus, cold protection, fruit trees, fruit tree, growing fruit trees, growing, garden, gardening, food forest, organic gardening, gardening tips, garden tips, gardening tips and tricks, how to, Millennial gardener

Id: Rt_gwANqb-M

Length: 22min 40sec (1360 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 15 2022