Our grapes were frosted earlier this Spring. It was a hard frost with plenty of warnings, but we do not really have much means to protect the new growth on the vines. I guess we could have gone out in the middle of the night and tried to spray some of them with the hose (check this out), but how much fun would that have been? I’m guessing it would not have been fun at all. And it seems that kind of effort would have been entirely superfluous as the grapes are making quite the recovery.

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But here is my question. What do I trim out now? Anything? It seems the frost damaged growth has sprouted multiple shoots. Had it not frosted, I don’t think I would have seen this many side shoots. Take a look at the image and note the multiple shoots from the frost damaged growth. What do you think, cut some out? Leave them and see what happens? Will I need to de-cluster since I’ve more than doubled the amount of fruit clusters? These vines are in their third year. Any readers have advice for us and the Internet at large?

I’m leaning toward calling this the result of powdery mildew. It’s hard to tell as the leaves had yet to really open. But with the mower down for a couple weeks and some extremely tall grass in the vineyard, conditions were moist and warm. Likely some kind of fungus, and powdery mildew is one of the more common grape diseases.

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Copper solution is somehow an organic fungicide. Time to start our spray regimen – which for us is not very regimented. Anne tries a lot harder than I do. Perhaps this vine loss will inspire me to join the mold battle. If anyone happens to know definitively what this disease is, I’d be eager to learn.

We could not have asked for a nicer weekend in the middle of March. Not too windy, lots of sun, mild temps all help to make my winter lethargy melt away. I seriously feel like I got some sun today. 

And we were productive too! How can you not be when the weather is finally this beautiful?! And it was just in time for the grapevines. Any longer and they might have started bud swell. About half of our grapes needed to be cut back to year one. They were not tall enough. This year they should easily reach the first wire. Installing the wires is a project for when the ground is completely thawed as I still need 22 line posts and two end posts.

Planted more seeds today too: 2 hot peppers, 2 sweet peppers, brussel sprouts, artichokes, yellow tomato, and some zinnia from last years garden just to see what might sprout. Good times ahead!