Winter is here!

[mgmarty]

Its almost -20F here now. I was actually hoping we would get a cold winter to see how hardy some of my vines are. I bought about 10 different varieties from Double A including some vinifera vines like Ives, Chancellor, Zweigelt, Dornfelder, Cabernet Franc and Lemberger. Also testing Landot Noir, Regent, Leon Millet and a few others that should be cold hardy like Petite Pearl and Marquette. We have about 8" of snow cover and I'm not giving the vines any protection at all. If they don't survive they won't be planted again. I expect at least 1/2 won't make it. We'll find out in spring I guess.

Pat

Keep us posted. I would be interested to see which ones do and don't make it

 

[Julie]

It is currently -10F, it gonna be a little nippy headed to work this morning.

 

[spaniel]

-14F here the last two mornings; supposed to warm up tomorrow. We do have a foot or more of snow on the ground, so I'm hoping for the best. It will break my heart if the whole vineyard dies back to the ground.

 

[Pat57]

Keep us posted. I would be interested to see which ones do and don't make it

Sure, will do. I fully expect the Petite Pearl and Marquette to survive, they are rated to about -40F or so. Some of the others are rated for zone 5 (-20F) but I have my doubts. I even tried a few zone 6-7 vines like Cabernet and Merlot. I did cover those grafts up to at least hopefully keep them alive. I only bought one each of the vinifera to try. That's probably not a good representation of each variety, but they were all good and healthy going into dormancy.

Pat

 

[Pumpkinman]

1° today with a wind chill of -14°....brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Last night around 2;30 am, our wood deck was popping and cracking like crazy from the intense cold!

 

[ckvchestnut]

On one if our -39c days I noticed not only the normal lacing patterns on my windows but this cool pearl or beading pattern! Never seen it like that before and have seen it since then but only I those EXTREMELY cold days. It's alien weather lol JK! I know it's weird but we've been getting January weather in December and it started long before the official first day of winter and now we're getting Feb weather in January! Let's hope spring comes early too!

 

[Julie]

1° today with a wind chill of -14°....brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Last night around 2;30 am, our wood deck was popping and cracking like crazy from the intense cold!

LOL, so was ours, I actually jumped a couple of times it was so loud

 

[Runningwolf]

Hey I was wondering if anyone else had that. Our house is only 14 years old but there was loud cracking and popping. Our deck was doing the same. What is the cause of this. Anyone else have this.

 

[jamesngalveston]

I use to be a structural engineer..long time ago.
There is two types of loads on a deck, shear load and moment load.
In the extreme cold wood are composites can get so compressed that the moment load will make them constrict so fast that it creates sounds and just wait till this summer....you will here that popping again, and you will have to rescrew are nail the deck boards down.....
You may have some split and come up...
In prudhoe bay alaska we used a board type out of teflon to keep this from happening...

 

[grapeman]

Here earlier this week we had cryoseisms which were similar to what you heard only bigger. The soil surface gets wet and then the cold weather makes it crack creating mini-quakes. See the video on the link to one of our TV stations http://www.wptz.com/news/vermont-ne...sm/-/8869880/23719742/-/1000mfmz/-/index.html

 

[Floandgary]

Sooo,,, anyone wanna try some cold stabilization??? LOL. BTW, I remember cold snaps like this lasting nearly a week and trees exploding in the woods. Now I don't go out in the woods when it's like this..

 

[ckvchestnut]

Sooo,,, anyone wanna try some cold stabilization??? LOL. BTW, I remember cold snaps like this lasting nearly a week and trees exploding in the woods. Now I don't go out in the woods when it's like this..

About the only thing to stabilize this winter is the wine! I won't be stabilized til spring comes!