Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Building more fig space

Here's a new area we've just built. These tables have enough room to hold 3,000 young fig plants, and the space under the tables is enough to hold 4,000+ cupped up figs in humidity bins. The plan is to run 2x4 boards across the top and hang grow lights from them. We have 50 humidity bins stacked up in our house eagerly waiting for this space :)

We experienced a deep freeze about 3 weeks ago where we got down to around -6F, which caused the young trees and cuttings in this area to be frosted (the ones floating in the swimming pools were not frosted because of all that bottom heat). At the time, we didn't have any more electrical capacity to heat with; we were already maxed out. So we hired an electrician who replaced our 100 Amp breaker box with a 200 Amp version and added some more outlets. Now we have the ability to heat this area and keep it well above frost even on the coldest nights. And on a positive note: the plants that were frosted have rebounded and pushed out new leaves, so it looks like they'll make a full recovery.


Here are some updated pics from some of the figs growing under grow lights in another tunnel: