I bought 7 Grape Vines, 2 concorde,5 Niagra and planted them on
Wednesday of this past week. I am not really sure but I would guess
they are a year old as they already had a shoot or two with leaves
already open.

I planted them about 6-8 feet apart along my fence. The soil there is
pretty much a clay type, however I filled the hole with what the
grape was already in and starter fertilizer that contained peat moss,
compost and loam. It was foggy overnight, and they looked fine the
next morning. HOwever there was a frost warning for Thursday evening
so I covered them with plastic bags.. this seemed to make them very
angry on Friday as they were soggy on the ends and the leaves had
curled up. I replaced the plastic with cut up old curtains ( cotton)
the next night as there was frost as well. This morning Saturday I
took them off as it is Sunny and about 10 degrees Cel. They still
look very sad... The soil is quite wet, and I decided to take off th
"soggy" branches. it releaved the stem was still a health moist green
inside.

Is there any hope for my grapevines or did the frost kill them?

Probably only time will tell. Plants can be surprisingly resilent if
given a chance.

COvering with a plastic bag sounds like a bad idea, unless you take
precautions. Plants do need to breathe. So without some opening you'd
be trapping all the moisture inside. This would probably result in
condensation all along the inside--if this was against the leaves
you'd have soggy leaves come morning. The curtains sound like a better
idea. I do have some crop covers that let in most of the sunlight,
and add warmth, but are breathable, and let water through.

I've read that Grapes like good drainage. I had a potted vine from
last year that formed buds, then stopped. I was begining to think it
died on me. I just planted it in a space out back and the soil was
incredibly wet in the pot. I think the overly wet conditions wre
killing it. Hopefully I will see it recover in the next week.


The only treatment I could suggest is liquid seaweed fertilizer(I use
Sal****er Farms Organic Seaweed Concentrate). I use it on any stressed
plants. It was suggested in the book BOUNTIFUL CONTAINER (very
recommended for the container-vegetable gardener). I've had very
positive results. It has no nitrogen but potassium and potash and lots
of micronutrients. I've used it on seedlings, seedsoaking, as a boost
during growth spruts and fruiting, and defintiely whenever my plants
are sickly from my abuse or something more natural.


Good Luck

lid (Dinkyam) wrote:

I bought 7 Grape Vines, 2 concorde,5 Niagra and planted them on
Wednesday of this past week. I am not really sure but I would guess
they are a year old as they already had a shoot or two with leaves
already open.

I planted them about 6-8 feet apart along my fence. The soil there is
pretty much a clay type, however I filled the hole with what the
grape was already in and starter fertilizer that contained peat moss,
compost and loam. It was foggy overnight, and they looked fine the
next morning. HOwever there was a frost warning for Thursday evening
so I covered them with plastic bags.. this seemed to make them very
angry on Friday as they were soggy on the ends and the leaves had
curled up. I replaced the plastic with cut up old curtains ( cotton)
the next night as there was frost as well. This morning Saturday I
took them off as it is Sunny and about 10 degrees Cel. They still
look very sad... The soil is quite wet, and I decided to take off th
"soggy" branches. it releaved the stem was still a health moist green
inside.

Is there any hope for my grapevines or did the frost kill them?

DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email)
Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY, 1 mile off L.I.Sound
2nd year gardener
http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/royalfrazier/

they will probably be fine. They evolved to withstand late frosts. Even
if they will lose leaves now they will releaf later.