Growing Citrus Below Freezing

Have you ever wanted to grow your own Mandarin Oranges but you live in the fly over states?

My wife and I enjoy eating lots of fruit, but growing up north of Florida or Texas makes it difficult to find fresh produce year round.

There are a few Amish farmers within an hour of our home so greens and grass fed cattle are fairly abundant. However, my time in Florida allowed me to taste how good a fresh picked lemon or orange can be.

The gentleman in the video above is a retired postal worker in Nebraska. He installed a geothermal unit for his home several decades back and realized how efficient it was for heating his home. After going to the drawing board, he designed a geothermal greenhouse that allows him to grow citrus in Nebraska.

For those not familiar with Nebraska weather, there are winter days where the temperature goes to 25 below zero. That is not conducive for growing citrus.

With this geothermal unit, Russ Finch can enjoy all the produce he wants, as well as sell at the local farmers market at a profit.

My wife and I grew up in the state of Pennsylvania, and have multiple generations of farmers on both sides of our family. Obviously, our family farmers were intrigued by this idea.

I introduced the concept to one of them and he recently completed all the necessary state paperwork to have a geothermal greenhouse.

We are looking forward to going home over Christmas and having a fresh Mandarin Orange with our meal.

If you are interested in one of these units for yourself, the website link is here. Cost is around $25,000 for materials and the only heavy equipment is a backhoe for setting the pipelines under ground.

Curious to see if our friends such as @generikat, or @papa-pepper could use a greenhouse on their homesteads.

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Video source: Citrus