As you all know this winter has been horrible. Supposed to get 3" of snow Sunday morning.
I wanted to share some pictures of my sleeping figs in the garage and the ones in the greenhouse.
What a big difference! The ones in the garage are all alive, but far from waking up.

The only difficult thing about the greenhouse. (Especially with a winter like we had this year.) Is heating it. I kept the thermostat at 42 degrees. I heat it with hot water via an outdoor wood boiler. Needless to say, I burnt a lot of firewood this year.

Art,

   I  like your greenhouse and your photos.

   Almost all of mine went into an attached garage. Just a few went to our unheated sunroom. I think some of those in the dark garage are showing more signs of life than those in the sun room. Hope that doesn't portend trouble.

Thanks Dale,

Good luck with your trees. It won't be long before we will be doing the fig shuffle.

Love the photos Art, makes me think a greenhouse is absolutely the way to go.

That is a heck of a difference Art

Those are beautiful figs and citrus. Nice work. I'd appreciate any info about which varieties breba taste best?

I have heated my greenhouse anywhere from 34 to 40F in winter. Either one has worked for citrus and figs. Then you could go up to 42F after the figs start breaking bud.

Steve, Good to know that you were able to let your temp get down to 34 and have no problems.
It will be a lot easier to keep that temp. The only concern would be when it goes from 34 to 85 on a sunny day. Would those drastic swings in temp cause any issues?

Looks fantastic Art . I agree that is a huge difference . Do you cut your own wood for the boiler? You'll have lots of breba . Greenhouse was definitely the way to go for citrus and maximizing breba! I'd like to hear about the breba's taste /variety also.

Wow very nice.. Which I had the room....a greenhouse is the way to go.

Art:

I don't think 34 to 85 will be an issue for figs or citrus. I'd probably draw the line at 90F this time of year, 100F in summer. On cloudy days it won't get over 50-60F. I've had citrus in both pots and ground. Nether was bothered by 34F at night. I do keep my winter days in the 50s for chilling other plants. Your warmer days should help by keeping up the average soil temperature for root activity.

I'm thinking about a separate greenhouse for figs and other low chilling fruits like grapes and citrus. Then I could run the warmer days all winter. That gets things going faster in spring as your setup shows.

Art, beautiful greenhouse, very nice plants , congratulations :)

Steve, Thanks for the info. I will probably have more questions for you down the road.

Pattee, Yeah I cut and split all the wood myself. Luckily I have about 45 acres of woods to cut from.
I will post pictures of the ripe breba in a few months.

Here are some pictures of my wood boiler. I will have this wood shed filled all the way full in a few months.
Even though I have a heat pump and an electric furnace. I heat the house and my water in the house with this boiler. I usually quit burning in May and start back up around October. It's a lot of work but it keeps me in shape.

Hi Art
PHENOMENAL.... I could only wish....
Coop

You'll have more opportunity to test that wood burner. The weather is headed your way. Looks like we have an inch so far. NWS is predicting 5-8".


That's a lot of work, but it's satisfying, once you're inside and warm.

Hi Art
That is quite a setup you have! 
Curious how you also heat your house with the wood broiler?  Also do you move your figs out of the greenhouse for the summer?

Pino, Check this site out. http://www.centralboiler.com/home.html

Basically above the firebox there is 196 gallon water jacket on the model I have. There are two pumps. One pushes water to the greenhouse and the other to the house. There is a water-to-water heat exchanger on the side of my hot water tank to heat the water when in use. There is also a water-to-heat exchanger above my furnace. So basically the only electric I use is for the pumps and for the fan on my furnace.
In my greenhouse it's basically a fan that turns on when it needs heat.
I also heat my attached garage with the wood burner.

Before the greenhouse was built, I'd only have to load the wood burner once a day. Now with the greenhouse I have to load it twice a day. (That's on the coldest days.)
Now that it's getting warmer it doesn't use much wood. Load it once a day.

Pino,
Yes, once it gets warmer I will be bringing most of them out. Probably all of them.

Art,
That's a great setup!
Thanks.

Hi Art.
That's some beautiful looking plants you got there.
Good luck with them all.
Vito

Art here near Chicago our garage gets into the teens each winter to give you an idea .  ; )

Thanks Vito
Everything that you gave me at the Staten Island fig fest has a special place in the greenhouse.
They are looking real good!

Shailesh,
 Thanks for the kind words. It's a work in progress. I'm still learning about using a greenhouse.

All of the garage trees are outside. They are all leafed out and lots of breba.
The greenhouse figs are still inside. I hope to get them out Monday. It's supposed to get into the mid 30's Sunday night.
The bad thing is it's getting very hard to water the trees in the greenhouse. There's no room to move in there. I figured I'd have them out by now. Next year there won't be as many trees in there!

The pictures inside of the greenhouse are from both end doors and the figs by the house are the ones that were in the garage.