deluxestogie Grow Log 2017

[Bex]

How a ballcap ages

Today, I stumbled into a digital photo of my embroidered ballcap (specially made for a Grand Canyon hike in '06) taken in 2007. That was 10 years ago. I retrieved the hat from my overburdened hat rack, and shot another photo of it today. Although the cap's vibrant blue has faded from the passing of a decade, it shows no sign of becoming threadbare.

Left: 2007. Right: 2017.

Bob

I really do need to read these posts more often.....I like the beard, as well, and wonder why the moustaches is now becoming more auburn with time.....

 

[deluxestogie]

About that auburn moustache, it is seen only with smokers, and only with those who have white facial hair. If I shampoo my moustache, rinse and repeat about 5 or 6 times at one go, then I have an entirely white and gray moustache. So, it's oxidized nicotine. You may notice that the "auburn" patch takes on roughly the same hue as the white walls of a room, when one smokes indoors (often noticed only when a framed picture is taken down). My study looks like that, since I smoke a pipe in there during cold weather. The remainder to the year, my moustache takes the brunt.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

The Prancak N-1 seems to sun-cure well. It will be a while before I taste it.

The last priming of Piloto Cubano PR is now hanging in the shed.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

A Tour for Suckers

I haven't followed my own advice, and destroyed all these tobacco pest motels. Suckers are everywhere. So I thought I would comment on why I'm unlikely to harvest most of these. In general, even the most tempting suckers appear to need about two more weeks to mature. That brings me into October, which is usually not a month here with ideal air-curing conditions.

The nearest Vuelta Abajo plant, below, is the only sucker in this bed that has any chance of maturing some leaf worth the fuss. Like the suckers, the weeds have also grown in this bed.

Although there are some moderately large sucker leaves among the Corojo 99, they are close to the soil, and surrounded by bug-nibbled leaves.

VA Bright Leaf had me seriously considering a small, second harvest. BUT...I'm not particularly fond of air-cured VA Bright, and I am not inclined to crank the kiln up to flue-cure temps again this season. (I figure that each season in which I flue-cure leaf, it will cost me one replacement fan, which is about $15. I just replaced it 4 weeks ago.) Besides, there are at most 15 to 20 leaves large enough to be worth the bother.

The single most likely sucker to harvest from the entire garden is the Criollo (Cuba) plant indicated by the arrow below. Stalk-harvested, it might have a fighting chance of curing in October.

And finally, there are all these smallish Besuki leaves. Those from the 8 tabakanbau plants just might cure alright during October, since they cure like white-stem burley. On the other hand, most of those leaves are mighty small to use for binders or wrappers. So probably a "no" on the Besuki suckers.

With autumn beginning later this week, some hanging corn might be in order. These are hanging on my front porch. They represent varieties from a number of different years.

The yield from the corncob patch has not yet dried on the stalks, and is still out in the field. One or more of my wilder neighbors (either a deer or a raccoon, or both) brought down 3 of the cornstalks out there. (You can see two of them in the very first photo of this post.) It seems it or they were expecting sweet corn, since only one of four downed ears was eaten. The remaining three are dwarfish, stumpy ears. In the photo, those are McCormack's Blue Giant, VA White Gourdseed and Hickory Cane. What is really exciting is the amazing girth of the VA White Gourdseed. It remains to be seen how much of that girth is kernel and how much is cob. I'll find out once it's fully dried. But there are a whole bunch of really big ears still out there.

It's curious that all three of the corncob ears in the photo show the color and seed shape appropriate for their mother plants, even though none was bagged and hand-pollinated. So, apparently, the only taint of varietal crossing is in the germ cells buried within each kernel. That would mean that growing a mixture of corn varieties for cobs is not a problem, except, of course, for saving seed to propagate. To be convinced of this, I'll have to examine all the rest of the corn.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

You can have all the suckers you want. I've got dozens. Some of them are impressively large and have bloom heads on them. I might actually pick some of these if the frost doesn't get them first. I still plenty of regular tobacco to harvest before that happens. First things first, as the saying goes.

Can you eat that corn? If I remember my Agronomy 303 class, there are three major types of corn. Are they dent, sweet, or pop?

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

Can you eat that corn? If I remember my Agronomy 303 class, there are three major types of corn. Are they dent, sweet, or pop?

Wes,
All of my corncob corn is dent corn. It is edible like sweet corn in the milk stage, though not as sweet. And it kind of spoils the cob, being picked so early. Once it's dry, it can be ground into corn meal, and used to make cornbread, mush or tortillas--or for thickening a pot of chili.

Popcorn is also called "flint" corn. The Chapalote (in the photo) is an heirloom Mexican flint corn. The Seneca Red Stalker is a North American native flint corn (some are mostly red and some are mostly white). Supposedly both will pop, though I haven't tried it.

Sweet corn holds a lot of water within the kernels, and the whole kernel shrinks when the corn dries. Flint corn holds much less water, and its coat is more impervious, so it doesn't shrink. Dent corn is in between. The side coat is impervious, but the top of each kernel is not. So when it dries, only the center of the top of each kernel shrinks, leaving a "dent". If you look carefully at the Chapalote and the Red Stalker in the photo, each kernel is still perfectly round and shiny on the top. All the others have dents in their kernels.

I've looked over various corn grinders during the past year, and haven't yet decided if I'll purchase one. If I do, it would be a ~$40 cheapie. And I likely won't be growing more corncobs next year. If any of my giant corn makes good pipes, then I'll already have a lifetime supply. If not, then I'm throwing in the towel. (I know that Missouri Meerschaum has their secret variety, but I also know it's a field corn [dent corn]. And I've grown the largest named varieties there are. Five different ones.) I'll keep my fingers crossed on the VA White Gourdseed and Larry's Boone County corn.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I grew up eating Green Giant Niblets corn on the cob. My dad knew the right guy was how he got the seed. It sure was tasty.

Good luck with the milling. I have a grain mill attachment for my mixer and it says explicitly in the instructions "not for corn". (Or coffee for that matter.) The poor thing would probably die if I tried to mill corn. But if you can get it milled properly, I bet you could get some tasty results. By the way, Orville Redenbacher was an agronomist by profession. His secret was his own proprietary line of corn. I remember seeing him on Johnny Carson. Boy am I dating myself now.

Wes H.

Sweet peas, the kind that you can or freeze, are the same way as sweet corn. All wrinkly and dimpled when you harvest them dry for seed. We have a major seed treating and handling facility in my hometown, and they mostly handle peas there. We grow a lot of peas around here. They are a good rotational crop for the farmers, and they fix nitrogen for the soil. Too bad they aren't worth more. Not a lot of profit in peas.

 

[SmokesAhoy]

I followed your advice this year regarding removing all the root balls. They were so impressive I was going to take pictures but was trying to get stuff done with 2 big helpers and didn't want to run to get a camera. Anyway one of the suckers had it's own root system. How could I not have a tobacco house plant over the winter? I clipped all but two of the leaves and potted it up. It was looking wilted earlier but after a few hours the roots seemed to kick online and it perked up.

The root balls would have been almost impossible to pull out without the broad fork levering them up and dislodging a bunch of the dirt. They really were impressive, I wish I'd taken a picture.

 

[deluxestogie]

Drying Prancak N-1

Over 90% of my stalk-sun-cured Prancak N-1 leaves have been removed from the stalks, and loosely dumped into a bushel basket in my curing shed. Some of the last stalks to be cut still have some green leaf, and remain hanging on the line.

This time of year in Virginia, the dew point rises to at or near the temperature almost every morning. Although the dew point rapidly falls (as the fog lifts from the pastures), and the temperature may reach into the 80s by late afternoon, I get a daily dose of moisture. For my hanging leaf, the shed temp easily reaches higher than the outdoor temp, and it loses all that extra moisture before night. This is not so for the Prancak N-1 leaf in the bushel basket that's sitting on the floor. I noticed that it tends to remain too moist for the residual stem moisture to fully dry.

Today, I brought it into the kitchen, and spent maybe 30 minutes spreading, cleaning and stacking each leaf. When done, I compressed the stacks beneath a cutting board weighted with a large, unopened jar of peanut butter.

The leaf stacks were moved to a seedling heat mat that rests on a wire shelf on the back porch. Left to their own, the stacks would slowly expand and topple. So I've added a 1020 lattice tray on top, to keep them from going astray. I'll flip the stacks every few days, until the stems are fully dried.

The Prancak N-1 sun-cured leaf is mostly a nice reddish, light-brown color, which is promising. I will likely kiln the leaf as well.

[I also use the heat mat to complete the drying of pole bean pods, to minimize Aspergillus fungus growth, which is common on dried beans. I pick the beans once the pod has not only yellowed, but has mostly dried on the vine. So they come in 2 to 20 at a time. After they are crispy dry, I move them to an adjacent basket, and leave them exposed to sun every day. When they are all harvested and dry, I will shell the pods, and store the dried beans in a Mason jar.]

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Nostrano del Brenta Top Leaf

This is from my 2016 crop. I took two random leaves from the bag, to use as cigar filler. They seemed so photogenic that I couldn't resist a few pictures.

Most of the top leaf in the bag is as large as the larger leaf in the photo. I find these dark colors to be difficult to capture in a photograph. The camera's auto-metering just isn't tuned to figure it out. All but the labeled photo were shot with a flash.

If I had aligned the ruler with the exact end of the leaf, it would actually measure about 23 inches. [I wonder what Nostrano del Brenta would do as a shade-grown wrapper.]

The underside of the top leaf showed an olive-green tint prior to kilning. Now it is just a dull brown.

Even without stretching the leaf, you can see the oily sheen of the upper surface.

Bob

 

[DistillingJim]

Is there a reason you've kept the plants in the ground post harvest? With the exception of the plants I'm taking seed from, I pulled mine out...

 

[Gavroche]

Is there a reason you've kept the plants in the ground post harvest? With the exception of the plants I'm taking seed from, I pulled mine out...

And what did you put in exchange? A green manure, plant waste?

Et qu'avez-vous mis à la place ? engrais verts , coupe de pelouse ?

 

[deluxestogie]

Is there a reason you've kept the plants in the ground post harvest? With the exception of the plants I'm taking seed from, I pulled mine out...

I'm old and lazy. I've been truly enjoying some days without a backache. Currently, I'm waiting for a day or two of rain, to soften the soil around the roots. Then I will bring out my pickax, and level the beds. I promise. Maybe.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

I rolled a cigar of filler that is half Nostrano del Brenta top leaf and half Little Dutch mid leaf.

[Photo: imagine a light brown obelisk with ash at the end]

The binder is mild Sumatra wrapper from WLT. For wrapper, I used an oddball Corojo Oscuro (WLT) leaf that was actually very thin, and a dull, light brown color (in contrast to the thicker, much darker leaf in the bag).

I've been attempting to determine a good pairing for the Nostrano del Brenta, which is quite mild as a puro. It turns out that Little Dutch is a great partner. Together, it yields a smooth, non-Caribbean cigar that reminds me most of all of a rich beef broth with the tiny addition of caramelized onion and black pepper. It even seems a little salty, even though it is not.

So my conclusion is that the dark, woody, leathery tastes of any Little Dutch, Dutch (Ohio), PA Red or Long Red may be a solid pairing for Nostrano del Brenta.

Bob

 

[Gavroche]

I'm old and lazy. I've been truly enjoying some days without a backache. Currently, I'm waiting for a day or two of rain, to soften the soil around the roots. Then I will bring out my pickax, and level the beds. I promise. Maybe.

Bob

I do not understand very well... You leave your naked earth(ground) then?



Je ne comprends pas très bien... Vous laissez votre terre nue ensuite ?

 

[deluxestogie]

I do not understand very well... You leave your naked earth(ground) then?



Je ne comprends pas très bien... Vous laissez votre terre nue ensuite ?

Yes. I leave the ground bare. Because my planting beds are only 5 feet by 12 feet, and all are surrounded by lawn grass, I experience no soil erosion or runoff.

Bob

 

[Gavroche]

Yes. I leave the ground bare. Because my planting beds are only 5 feet by 12 feet, and all are surrounded by lawn grass, I experience no soil erosion or runoff.

Bob

OK, I try to cover always the ground to dig only at least in a still supple(flexible) earth(ground) my ground is silico-clayey and when I have to be toffee-nosed having removed the lawn, it is as some concrete.
I had to make a board for tomatoes in this lawn, my spade did not want to go into the earth, I had to use the pickaxe!

Ok, j'essaie de toujours couvrir le sol pour ne bêcher qu'au minimum dans une terre toujours souple... mon sol est silico-argileux et quand je dois bêcher après avoir ôté la pelouse, c'est comme du béton.

J'ai dû faire une planche pour des tomates dans cette pelouse, ma bêche ne voulait pas rentrer dans la terre, j'ai dû utiliser la pioche !

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I'm so blessed to have good dirt! A little tidying up in the fall. A little shovel work in the spring. And away I go. Actually, quite a lot of shovel work in the spring. I want to turn my soil over, not mix it up with a rototiller. Would that I could use a moldboard plow. My space is too small, and finding a small tractor with single-bottom plow is pretty tough. You need to expose those fungi to the air, not stir them around in the mud. What can I say, I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy.

Wes H.

 

[DistillingJim]

And what did you put in exchange? A green manure, plant waste?

Et qu'avez-vous mis à la place ? engrais verts , coupe de pelouse ?

Nothing yet but I'll cover it in compost in the coming days/weeks and let it fallow over the winter.

 

[BigBonner]

If you want really loose easy to work soil we plow early in the winter( Sod late fall ) , leaving the tobacco patches rough .
The freeze and thaw will break up soil and the soil will be easy to work in the spring or planting season . Early plowing also allows sod to break down and compost away .