We have encountered challenging problems with growing grapes here, due to the severe winter cold. Our grape vines near the orchard died their first winter. After planting these grapes we tried to insulate them with straw to protect them from the harsh winter freezing. We used flakes of straw about 2 inches thick laid over the plants. A flake is a section of hay or straw that naturally flakes off of the end of a bale after the twine has been cut. This solution didn't work the way we had hoped. Half of the vines died completely, the rest died back to the ground and the root only survived. Since it takes grapes two or three seasons to start producing, these roots started from the beginning again. The grapes came back and started growing but we wanted to figure out what to do to help them survive, or we would encounter the same problem in the coming winter.
We checked with people around the area and found out that there was one person who was having success, by planting them along a rock wall. So our solution was to stack up small 18 to 24 inch high lava-rock half-circles around the vines with the open side facing south. This has worked very well and all the vines have survived well and are producing.
As shown in the picture we now have 15 grape vines growing near the orchard, each with their individually stacked half round rock wall and all are doing very well.
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