The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Frost protecting a grapevine

Frost protection for a grape vine

Mark has a very gentle touch that makes him the right choice for protecting tender spring growth from late freezes. He wrapped both young grapevines in front of our trailer in preparation for the cold spell, covering up all of the stems that have flower buds attached. Fingers crossed the plants inside those bundles will make it through Blackberry Winter unscathed.



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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Ontario gets a lot of frost in the spring, can be a real problem for tender fruit production. I grew up on a tender fruit farm, smudge was one of the techniques used, but I also remember the sprinkler system being used. Anyway, here is an Ontario farm viewpoint on frost and frost protection.

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/85-116.htm

Comment by Maggie Turner Thu May 5 09:19:06 2016
Maggie --- Great factsheet! Thanks for sharing. I'm still poring over it, especially the passive methods. Interesting to read that clearings in forests like ours have a lower frost risk once they get above 2.5 acres in size.
Comment by anna Thu May 5 12:21:17 2016
I have vines to plant but have been stalling. I got caught by 19 degrees over the weekend and have damaged brassicas. Since you're covering your plants I'll keep mine in the bucket a little bit longer!
Comment by Robin Thu May 5 14:50:24 2016





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