And now for something completely different....

[Bex]

Wow, is no one flue curing anymore? Only Brown Thumbs thread for this year, and just 2 or 3 threads down....my horror from 2014. Well, pah. I have a feeling that it won't be repeated!!
As any of the UK posters will have probably advised, we have had a summer most horrid. The weather was rarely sunny, was often windy, and the temps only climbed to about 60F on a few days. I welcome all sympathy. However, my raggedy tunnel, and I, attempted to persevere.....My plants went into the tunnel at the beginning of June - pretty late considering our growing season. This year I had no mystery plants, but Lemon Virginia, Hickory Pryor, Burley and Izmir. OK, so the Izmir didn't do well at all - but everything else was a jungle. Many of the plants grew higher than the top of the tunnel and I have been tying them at an angle to give them more headroom. It makes entry into the tunnel a bit problematic, as they are angled out over the little walkway that I have, so there are areas where I literally have to crawl. I have 6 flowerheads bagged for the seedpods. The Burley took a lot longer to bud, and I only have one thus far that has produced a flowerhead. I'm guarding it with my life. In any event, after watching, caring, nurturing, all summer, the lower leaves of the Lemon Virginia and Hickory Pryor are actually getting yellow around the edge of the leaf. I can wait no longer - chafing at the bit, I did a small harvest which consists mostly of the lower leaves, and sadly, a few that my fat butt broke as I was trying to move around the plants. Funnily enough, there was a tremendous difference in color when I took the leaves out of the tunnel (the tunnel has that green plastic stuff on it, which apparently affects the way the color looks). So, I've started my first run. My 'chamber' (chest freezer) is set up pretty much like last year - the crockpot on high in the middle, 2 computer fans now positioned on either side of it and away from the freezer walls (while I was setting up, I found that they blew a LOT more air if they were about 6 inches or so away from the wall, rather than tucked up next to it - science is not my forte, and I found this out solely by accident). Thus far, I have no water in the crockpot - the run only started about an hour ago, and the temp and RH has not leveled off yet. My 'trial' run is 104 leaves, hung 2 together, front to front. I am feeling pretty hopeful about this year - last year my mystery leaf never yellowed at all on the plant. This year the leaf looks a lot different. Last year some of my yellowing phases took a week or more - and were still unsuccessful. I'm looking forward to not having to work so hard to get this procedure to go according to the proper 'schedule'. Will post photos as I go. I'm wishing myself the best of luck....

 

[Knucklehead]

Good luck with the cure.

 

[deluxestogie]

...there are areas where I literally have to crawl.

Good to hear from you about your season. The crawling part is good for the cardio-vascular system--at least, that's what they say. Snap a photo or two of your jungle tunnel while the camera is out.

Bob

 

[Bex]

Will take a couple of photos when I'm up at the tunnel tomorrow - it's getting dark here now. In the meantime, I thought I'd be a lot more relaxed about my curing run this year than I was last year. Um, no. I am running up to the freezer every half hour to check on the temp and RH....and loving every second of it. Maybe if I run up there often enough, I will be able to fit in between the plants that I have in the tunnel without breaking all the leaves off....???

 

[Brown Thumb]

Good Luck,
DGBAMA was Flue curing also. Check out his Grow Log.

 

[Bex]

Thanks! Will do....although I must say that I've been reading along and DGBAMA - although only starting a year or two ahead of me - is so far beyond me that it makes me feel a bit...inadequate. But I've learned a lot from his thread....

 

[Bex]

All seems to be going well, and I'm far more relaxes with this than I was last year. I'm not quite into 24 hours - so far there isn't much activity with the leaf - it's a pale green, which is what I would expect. My first run is small - just to get my feet (and my equipment) 'wet':


And my jungle, from the door of the tunnel:




These are the Lemon Virginia and the Hickory Pryor.

 

[deluxestogie]

I see some actual yellow in the hanging leaf. Good luck with the run.

And yes, "jungle" is the correct description. I believe you've mastered the technique required to grow tobacco inside a cramped habitat on Mars.

Bob

 

[Bex]

My first 24 hours has passed without any mishap. I think part of the problem of flue curing in my chest freezer is that when the warm moisture rises, even if the lid is slightly ajar, it condenses on the lid and really has nowhere to go. Although I allowed my leaf to dry off a bit yesterday before getting it ready, it was still pretty easy for me to attain 99% RH last night whether or not the lid was slightly vented or not. I opened the freezer lid for a moment or two, wiped away the condensation, and closed the lid down again. Today things have settled down a bit, and I am holding steady at about 97-98% RH, with no problem. I think that allowing the surface moisture to evaporate off the leaf was really helpful. Otherwise I was thinking about biting the bullet and actually putting a vent into the freezer lid. (OK, and buying one of those hygrometers like the digital Ranco so I could set the vent up to open and close at the prescribed RH). I hope that these runs turn out ok, but nevertheless I'm having a lot of fun with this....

 

[TravisNTexas]

Indeed it is a jungle! Thanks for the pictures and best of luck with the cure!

 

[Bex]

This current run is like night and day from anything that I encountered last year....last year I could be sitting at 5 or 6 days into yellowing, wondering what I was doing wrong, leaf hardly changing color, etc. It was a nightmare, and I couldn't understand why everyone else on this forum was able to achieve some kind of success. I cannot count how many times I read and re-read Bob's Cozy Can thread, wondering why I couldn't get the hang of this. I thought perhaps it was my freezer chamber, my crockpot, my environment, my soil, my water source, me.....
WELL....it was none of those things, but obviously those absurd 'mystery plants' that some sadist on the internet gleefully was selling to unsuspecting noobs....or perhaps it was some bureaucrat at Tobacco Control, part of an insidious government attempt to regulate behavior and thwart any attempt to flue cure at home. Whatever it was....it is now HISTORY!!! My run is actually going according to plan...Amazing!! I am now 40 hours into this, maintaining 95F/96-97% RH with ease. EASE!!!! And, better yet, my leaf has already turned to a pale greeny-yellowish color. Perhaps I am being to optimistic here, but I think that this is actually going to work.
Of course (now that I am more relaxed about this) there are some issues with doing this in a chest freezer - condensation on the lid of the freezer being the main one. I find I need to quickly open the freezer every so often in order to wipe the lid down - the temperature doesn't drop much (I do this quickly) - only about a degree or so. While the RH will instantly drop to about 70%, it quickly mounts back up again to the 95/6/7% within a few seconds.
I have a 'tube system' that hangs over the crockpot, in case I ever need to add water, so that I can do so without opening the lid - this tube is serving as the only vent that I am using. I find that actually venting the lid - even only with a clothespin - opens the lid a bit for at least 1/2 of its perimeter, and drops the RH to about 82%. So, at least for the moment, everything is going according to plan.
Somewhere, lurking in the bowels of this forum, is an unnamed benefactor who felt badly for me last year, and provided some legitimate seed for me to try. To that benefactor, I can only give my heartfelt thanks and gratitude. It is amazing how simple gestures can have 'life-changing' (or at least 'flue-cure' changing) effects!!

 

[AmaxB]

A Fair Trade best seller here and the price is right... truly a fun read.

 

[Bex]

Well, here is an indication of the type of person you're dealing with - I read Amax's post above, and am ready to send a pm to him advising that the link for this book that he's touting, which will be fun for me to read, give me valuable information and is also selling cheap, is missing. Doh.....

 

[Bex]

I am now about 60 hours into the run. The leaves are a very pale green, mottled with about 50% yellow - looking good (although looking frustratingly green through the lens of my camera). I am able to easily keep the RH at 95-98%. This morning, I bumped the temperature up from 95F to about 98F, just to see if I could 'speed things along' a bit. While I may not get the yellowing result I want within that proscribed 72 hour period, I'm not 'nervous' about going for another 12-24 hours (or however long it takes) for the leaf to yellow as it should. My results thus far are very promising - and as I was patient enough last year to yellow for over a week or more, doing this for another day will be a breeze.
The venting issue is a bit 'inconvenient', as I find that with the lid closed and one tiny vent (the inlet tube for water), I can get up to 99% RH every now and then. My probe is sitting about halfway down the leaves, in between two rows. If I open the vent a bit wider (so that the entire lid is opened very slightly) the RH can drop down to 90% or so. I have been opening the lid and wiping off the excess condensation. I am planning my next run (already) and will probably have the chamber full - about 200+ leaves in it. I imagine that more leaves will provide more condensation and moisture. While I am able to handle this certainly, I must say that it does make Amax's automatic venting system a lot more attractive. How cool it would be to just set everything, come back in 3 days when yellowing should be over, check the result, and either go another day or set the equipment for the next phase....and then go back into the house, put my feet up, and continue eating bon bons until the next temp/RH setting is needed? These plans are what dreams are made of.....

 

[deluxestogie]

Hurricane Joaquin is no longer of much interest to the US. But...you might want to eat those bon bons before next Saturday.

Bob

 

[AmaxB]

I'm in a devilish mood, scratching my head and wondering how the hurricane got into this must be the Bon Bons.
Tobacco is a strange Beast makes us do all sorts of things.....

 

[deluxestogie]

...how the hurricane got into this...

It knows Bex' address.

Bob

 

[Bex]

You know, I really like this forum...it is always comforting to come on here, and learn about tobacco, curing.....and how, in about 90 hours or so, some hurricane will be arriving that will possibly flood my house, destroy my tunnel, rip my tobacco plants to shreds.....Ho hum, where are my bon bons???
Have you ever been on to yr.no? It's the meteorological site from Norway - pretty accurate too, and I can actually find my townland (like a very small neighborhood) on it. It gives me the forecast for the next 10 days (yes, I know, it's virtually impossible to accurately predict 10 days in advance). Let's see...next Saturday....10 m/s winds 5mm rain. Pah, an April shower!!....(hopefully). If the hurricane does hit the coast up here, it will hit me - I'm about 100 yards from the sea, and have been flooded here a number of times.....

The out of focus view from my front door, before the high tide, of waves coming up my driveway:


A better question would be....how are you able to get such large photos into your posts? I thought these had to be reduced to some small size.....????

And just found a rather comforting headline from the world-renowned Clare Herald. No need to click on the page (and let the editor think that there is actually internet interest in their newspaper). The link says it all:
http://clareherald.com/2015/10/hurr...ireland-no-significant-impact-expected-06575/

 

[deluxestogie]

A better question would be....how are you able to get such large photos into your posts?

My images are not attached. They are simply linked from my web server, using [ img ] tags around the path. Besides, they're only 700 pixels wide.

Bob

 

[AmaxB]

Oh my Hurri Expected the paper is on sale today only