Fleabag Grow Log 2025-2026

[Fleabag]

Time to get a grow log going. This is more of a post grow log of last seasons grow. This season is underway so I'll updated that more as I go.

Jump back in time to late 2024.
I received Havana 608, Habano 2000, Criollo 98 and Florida Sumatra seeds in September '24 from memory but didn't get them into the seedling mix until late December '24. I am using some large ice cube trays off aliexpress as my seedling trays. I chop the corners out of the bottoms to allow water ingress and places for the roots to air prune if I leave them in there. Filled with buffered coco coir/perlite mix. Seeds in on 25th Dec '24 but no pic of the setup.

It was pretty much the height of summer in NZ and where I am its about 1000ft ASL. Our growing season seems to be about a month later than down the hill only 10 mins away and about a month shorter. We get more wind also as we are situated on a reasonably flat area between some hills that form a bit of a funnel. Gentle breeze down the hill means windy as at home. Put a jacket on at home because its cold and when get down the hill it's T shirt and shorts weather. Bit of a pain but being up in the hills sure beats being in the city.

7th Jan 2025
Seedlings growing well since seeding so moved some single ones to their own cube. This was only going to be a bit of a test grow to get a feel for things so just wanted two of each in the ground and a spare just in case. Weather was pretty warm, maybe the odd high of 30°C, 15-20°C overnight.


15th Jan 2025
Good growth and snipped. Watering them with my 30-10-40 hydroponic solution at 1/3 strength as that is what I had on hand. At this point I just had them inside under a single LED strip salvaged from a display unit from work. During the day I would chuck them on the deck or bench to get some sun.


25th Jan 2025
The weather was pretty warm now so they got much larger after only 10 days so I re-potted into larger pots with more coco/perlite to continue feeding them hydroponicly. I moved some of the other still small seedlings into their own ice cube pocket so I could do some experiments with them. Still kept under the rubbish LED light with excursions outside for some real sun. Large ones were kept by the ranch slider since they wouldn't fit on the bench.


7th Feb 2025
Got them in the ground as they were looking pretty good. Sadly while on the way to the garden I tripped and the big tray went flying, tobacco plants all over the place out of their pots, so frustrating! I totaled my arm on a bunch of old wooden pallets I had just moved that morning and completely forgot were there. Couldn't see them as the leaves were blocking my view and smashed right into them. Most of the seedlings got pretty mangled in the fall so I planted the two best of each and hoped for the best. The raised garden is about 3m x 2m, not very big, soil isn't that great but I mixed in a bunch of sheep manure and mulched it pretty good. There is a decent sized tree lucern in the middle to rob nutrients but provide nitrogen fixing root nodules plus a small seed grown avocado at one end. They didn't seem to effect growth but did provide excellent surfaces for tobacco leaves to get destroyed on during high winds.



9th Feb 2025
I discovered air pruning and net pots so I started to experiment with that. Small net pots for seedlings in hydroponic gutter and large bags to see if the baccy would grow to full size. Was still pretty warm at this stage but the days were getting shorter so didn't end up with any whopping great big plants in the end.



2nd March 2025
The small net pot plants had now been in the hydroponic gutter for a few weeks and were looking pretty good. Great time to get them in the ground but that wasn't the plan. Next season I would do it this way a lot sooner so I had them like this ready to roll when it got warm. These ones will stay in there to see how large they can get with a root ball of about 500mL. The plants in the raised garden were looking pretty healthy and putting on some mass. Pest attacks were non existent apart from a couple of cabbage white butterfly caterpillars on the lower leaves. They didn't eat much. Didn't get aphids or anything else for the whole outside grow. The green house ones were colonized by whitefly which I had to keep on top of. Never got rid of them but they didn't do much if any damage.



14th March 2025
Things kept growing pretty well. Still quite warm for where we are but windy so had to stake a few of them. Leaves getting a really good size now and still putting on some height.


28th March 2025
The plants in the various net pots out on the deck are looking good but wont grow much more as the days are already shorter and things are cooling off a bit. Still a few leaves to muck around with. The green house hydroponic plants are tall and skinny, probably 1/3 the leaf size as the garden ones. Still look pretty good though. There is shade cloth in the roof of the greenhouse to stop things getting roasted so that probably doesn't help. Still pretty good for a tiny little root ball and a bit of hydro nutrient. We had a lot of wind that did a good bit of damage to the garden ones but they are still looking pretty good. The Havana 608 handled the wind pretty well due to it's shorter more triangular shape.




25th April 2025
Big jump in time with lack of recording between. Busy with work and weather turning to crap plus discouraged due to the near total destruction of the outdoor plants. We had three storms each from a different direction specifically tailored to evade all existing wind protection devices. Leaf close to the tree lucerne was shredded while the others ended up with high speed rain water damage/bruising. In hind sight I should have just primed the big ones since they were all pretty large but they hadn't started to yellow yet so I had left them on. I did manage to get some good leaves from the Criollo as they seemed to yellow sooner than the others. The Havana 608 survived better than the others but was still quite damaged. After all that and salvaging what I could I pulled the stalks to have a look at the root balls. Pretty pathetic really but produced some big plants. I'm a size 10.5 foot. The Havana stems were pretty massive too. I moved the deck plants into the greenhouse too since it was getting pretty cold, thought I might see how long I could keep them going. They did pretty well but didn't get much larger. The hydroponic ones were a really good height but with their tiny leaves. Still pretty funny considering the root ball is the size of my fist.





18th May 2025
Meanwhile I had cured what I had harvested between a bunch of towels since humidity is generally pretty low and everything would flash dry green if I wasn't watching. A lot of the storm damaged leaf stayed greenish no matter what I did. Doesn't look good in this pic but a string of leaves also goes back from the pegs and quite a bit were not bad. Birthday cigar time. One of the cheaper cigars we can get over here at $30+NZD.


After that
During the winter once the hanging tobacco was fully dry I did a speed age using my 30L still boiler. It's just a big steel urn with a temperature control. I didn't get any pics of the set up but I basically kept a few inches of water in the bottom and a plastic strainer dropped in there which held the jars full of tobacco up in the steam. With it set at 60°C it would heat the steam column pretty even at 50-51°C. It has its own insulation jacket but I wrapped it up with a bunch of blankets to keep the heat in and it worked pretty well. Every 11-13 mins it would turn on for approx 50 seconds, pretty responsive. A couple of temp/humidity sensors in there showed it kept pretty consistent apart from during one power cut we had. It was a bit of a worry, would end up with a bunch of jars full of mould? It seemed to be ok in the end. Every week I would rotate the jars and let them air a bit. Did that process for 6 weeks and ended up with some good tasty baccy. Some of the jars had too much moisture and the baccy turned very dark and very fragile. Seems fine when low case so have used for a few dark wrappers and filler but it wont stretch if it is even slightly moistened, it just falls apart. It is super sweet too, think it may just have slow cooked. Lesson learned. Next time I will just pull the leaves out on a rainy day so they are in low case and bag them and then into the still kiln. I also have some heater beds from my old 3D printer that I may build into a kiln. It has the PID heater control too so may be able to jimmy up something suitable for next seasons big stack of leaf.

All in all a reasonably successful first season apart from ending up with a bunch of torn up storm damaged leaf. Still managed to roll many tasty cigars.

More to follow with this seasons growing and rolling.

 

[Fleabag]

Pre season cigar rolling in preparation for summer of 2025/2026 growing season.

Over winter I did a bit of rolling once my speed aged leaf had rested a bit. Had to figure out what I was going to grow this coming season so needed to get some rolling practice in. Probably a bit off grow blog topic so doing in one post so it can be removed if required.

There is a bit of info on my introduction post about how I cheat roll with an oversized ciggy roller. I roll the odd one properly but it's a pain with all broken leaf bits I ended up with. I need every decent leaf for wrapper I can save.

Rolling short stumpy ones helps a bit, I quite like a 4" by 44 size.


Winter monster elephant garlic in the background. Same garden and ready to harvest with a Habano I let grow over winter. It produced long skinny leaves all winter which I'll speed age with this years harvest. I stalk harvested eventually but the leaves didn't really colour cure, they kind of ended up greenish with a bunch of brown patches. No loss though, just another experiment. It was a pretty good haul of garlic. Probably no nutrients left now.



My tasting notes from the puros I rolled are laughable as I have no idea how to put flavour into words but would be interesting to see if others have a similar experience.

Criollo 98 Puro (4" by 37) - Slight pepper. Coco and caramel, soft and ripe flavour. Very nice 7.5/10 flavour
Habano 2000 Puro (4" by 37) - Mild and creamy. Warm flavour, small coffee and medium amount of smoke. Nice 6/10 flavour
Havana 608 Puro (4" by 37) - Strong nic. Quite peppery. Lots of smoke. Straight forward nothing amazing. 5/10 flavour
Florida Sumatra Puro (4" by 37) - Very mild. Not much pepper. Low smoke. Bland. 3/10 flavour

Not a decent scientific test but I made sure to use the least destroyed leaf and similar amounts of each leaf position to average out the flavour. Extra note on the FS, some speed aged leaf that was too damp came out very dark and fragile but with quite a nice flavour. I carefully used some as wrapper on some smaller sticks and it was quite nice and mild, very enjoyable still.


Tried some long skinny sticks which were great too. Mostly full of offcuts from my other tests.


Excuse the crap all over the couch. Possum skins and RC planes. Luckily the banjos are hidden further up on the wall lol.

I also consciously roll to make sure the ash has the greatest chance of extreme length. I like it when the ash ends up super long. People say it's good to have goals in life, my goal is to get super long ash and it's a bonus if it looks like a pro tig welder stacked it on there.




While I was getting the new season rolling a most favourite colleague of mine resigned. She was a most important part of our three man team and we kept each other sane for the last five high stress years. To commemorate her ascension to a more rewarding job and to mourn the the loss of my office buddy (and the extra 500-600 jobs I would have to deal with in the next 12 months) I had to enjoy my most expensive (by weight lol) cigar, an Ashton Cabinet Tres Petite. $7.42 per gram... Great smoke, very easy draw, and quite different from what I had been rolling. Enjoyed with some Whisky I swished from a freshly emptied ex Jack Daniels white oak barrel 1919 distilling imported and used to age their whisky. Swished about 10L of excellent whisky. Cheaty? You bet! I sure as heck wasn't going to waste it after paying $350 for the barrel so I could use the wood to age the funky rum I had been distilling. The clouds descended to compliment the joyful yet uncertain atmosphere, what an evening to remember.

 

[Fleabag]

Alright, time for more waffle.

Summer 2025/2026 growing season.

I thought you know what, I'm going to get ahead of the game this season. Things usually warm up around end of November so if I had some plants in the hydroponic net pots in the green house ready to go in the ground I might be able to make the most of the end of the spring crazy storms and just get some nice hot summer growing happening.

Brief plan: grow way more than last time. Plant a bunch into big 17L approx mesh bags for air pruning and kiddy pool style growing. Grow a bunch in the garden like last year. Start another batch at the same time I did last year so end up with two lots in one season, just in case this first lot fail due to premature planting and end of year cold snaps that sometimes happen.

9th September 2025
I got the seeds into the ice cube trays same as last season, Havana 608, Habano 2000, Criollo 98 and Florida Sumatra. This time I planned to grow two lots if possible to double my chances at dodging storms. Each set to have six of each and have a couple extra of the Criollo 98 and Habano 2000 since they had the flavours I enjoyed most. Mainly to make sure I had a good amount to use as wrappers and a good portion of the filler. The Florida Sumatra was pretty mild during my puro testing so just growing them as a bit of variety, not a main focus and the Havana 608 was quite a bit stronger than the others but didn't have the range of flavour I was after so growing it to make everything else go further. The yield was good so no point growing more than six I reckon. I found that adding it to the filler evened out the flavour and I had a bunch of reasonable binder type leaf too thanks to its wind resistance.


28th September 2025
Sprouts have appeared and they got split in to sets of twelve. Two seedlings per cube and one variety per tray.
It was still pretty cold so cranked the heat up to move along the germination. Once temp was up more consistently they all sprouted real quick. Still under the salvaged display stand LED light. I later salvaged another and now have two strips for extra growing power. Interesting thing I noted was the Habanos popped up much sooner than the others. Perhaps better cold tolerance? The Criollo was next then the Sumatra with the Havana dragging its arse way behind. Maybe a warm climate variety? I know nothing of this sort of thing. Had some VG in there for good luck but only had about 5% germinate. I'm not going to use it so not a big loss. Only ended up with three that went anywhere.



12th October 2025
Steady growth now things are slightly warmer. Again the Habano 2000 are cranking along significantly more than the other varieties with Sumatra showing some good growth.



23rd October 2025
Still packing on the kilos. I left the high density sprouts in case I wanted to try grow another bunch which I don't think I did in the end, they just got too tall and spindly.



1st November 2025
I thought I would get them into their small net pots and get them into the hydro gutter. Literally a gutter from the roof with the ends bent up so water doesn't flow out. I just top it up manually since I'm in there checking them anyway. I let them get a bit dry then water when they look like they are going to kark it. No Havana 608s in there yet. They are low priority. The net pots are about 100mm tall and 90mm dia. The soil is not great, just some stuff I jimmied up out of some compost and garden dirt. Didn't go the full coco coir this time since they were going to go into soil in big bags for the pool type growing.


18th November 2025
Good bit of growth but still quite cold at night in the glass house so not as good as it could be.


8th December 2025
Got them all bagged up into the 17L bags and situated into a 2000x1000 hydroponic tray my sister uses to soften her horses feet during the summer so they can be trimmed easier. Haven't needed to this year as it hasn't been that dry so I get to use it as a growing container. It has a massive crack down to about 30mm above the bottom so no chance of it filling up. Very convenient.

I can't remember why the FS are so much smaller than the other two, I think I bagged up the Criollo and Habano first and then the next week did the FS. Didn't take any pics during that time but I think that's what happened. It had been pretty warm up till this point but that would change.


15th December 2025
Quite a bit of growth at this stage but the temps had dropped and the winds had picked up from the north. I had to keep them sheltered between the hedge to the west, containers to the north and project caravan I should be doing instead of growing tobacco to the east. They missed a bit of the morning and afternoon sun so not ideal conditions. They are pretty stalky and the leaves weren't looking like they were going to get much width to them. The soil used in the pots wasn't the most rich so I was watering with the hydroponic nutrient since they can survive on that alone so not much risk of over fertilizing them. In the end I put them on the trailer in to get them them an hour or two more sunlight. Handy to get them out of the wind if needed too.



Anyway, need to sleep so will add more in the near future.

 

[Fleabag]

Alright, back at it after making a new garden and getting some more plants in so they can be destroyed by the cyclone that is on its way in about 30 hours. I'm surprised at my previous posts and how little I actually waffled on. Usually I would include every tiny detail I could remember. I'll see if I can make your eyes bleed with even larger walls of text if forget to keep things short lol.

21st December 2025
Got three weeks off from work over the xmas period now so can muck about in the garden and let my brain cool down. I pulled out a stick I had rolled earlier and got to work transplanting my six Havana 608, remaining lone Criollo 98 and Habano 2000 into some of the large 17L bags. As per the previous ones but not noted here, I used a mixture of a third each sandy fluffy clay, compost from Bunnings and soil which I had been building in one of the raised garden beds. It consisted of existing garden soil and a couple years of tree lucern and plum tree mulch with old potting mix. Thick with massive python sized worms so quite alive. Testing at a much later date with a soil tester it was really not rich at all, obviously, I mean what is 6L of compost going to do with approx the same clay and crappy soil. I completely forgot to even add any amendments to it. Using hydro nutes to water them wasn't quite enough in the end I think.

No idea what is what now as I shuffled them all about when I chucked them in the trailer tray. The smaller ones on the right are the Florida Sumatra

While doing all this I planned to enjoy this stick, I think it was a 3g Havana 608, 2g Criollo, 2g Habano 2000 Criollo wrapper. I don't have any pics of it burning but I know it was a good one.


This is a look at the bags I made. Started with a piece of weed mat 900mm long by 350mm wide. Use the vacuum sealer on heat mode to seal the long side and bottom then rotate 90 and pull flatish then seal the corners. When you flip it inside out it makes a squareish bottom bag. Same process for the small ones. Next time I make some I will document the process.

Next step is to get these Havana 608s out into the big bags. Here you can see the nice thick root ball formed while in the small bag in the hydro gutter. I have found it is best to get them into a larger pot or into the ground once you see roots starting to come out the bottom and sides. If you wait too long the stalk starts to shoot up instead of growing a bigger root ball.




26th December 2025
Rain and cold is here again and I had managed to cram all 24 bagged plants into the 2x1m tray like sardines. Looking not bad but leaves are pretty narrow and they are quite stalky. The FS planted a week later look quite a bit fatter, perhaps putting effort into leaf instead of stalk for whatever reason. I had some crappy little seedlings I hadn't bothered to remove from the cube trays so decided to stick them into the post garlic garden bed. They were looking pretty sad so more of an experiment to see what would happen. Had a few purslane popping up in there so stuck some of those into bags in the hydro gutter too. Tasty as garden snack weed.

Florida Sumatra

Criollo 98 (I think) next to tiny Havana 608

Habano 2000 looking pretty decent.

Some of the larger middle leaves were getting a bit of chlorosis so I think I hit them with a bunch of magnesium sulphate and a big does of calcium nitrate. The soil was likely on the absolute lower end of what could sustain such a huge fast growing plant nutrient wise. After a few days they greened up for the most part but most stayed a light green instead of the nice healthy dark green. Really hard to get a good pic of the colour difference with wet leaves.


Sad little seedlings and the old Hab 2000 from last year. Still cranking out some skinny but possibly useful leaves.




28th December 2025
Fast forward two whole days and it was time to get more seeds sown. About the same time as last seasons ones so surely I would have some success with these. Five of each type into three ice cube pockets. Aiming for six of each variety again. One seed in from each corner and one in the centre. Rammed under the double crapola LED lights, 9.6W per metre 5000k 12v.
Still got a few seedlings in the other trays that I hadn't done anything with yet. Just been sitting there under the LED for weeks.

 

[Fleabag]

The neighbours were spraying their driveway later in the day so I hooked up the tobacco trailer to the 2006 Suzuki Jimny with 290k Km on the clock and took them for a drive somewhere safe. Don't want my broad leaf weeds being eradicated. I put them back later in the evening since there was still wind from the north west. Unfortunately that night the wind switched around to the south and totally wrecked my crop. It was the one direction that wasn't well protected and having both of my Jimnys in front didn't help. The next day I tried a few things while it was chucking it down and gusting 40-60kph. I just ended up totally peeved off and thought they were toast. There is only one spot that may protect them from a southerly and it's a tight squeeze so did some creative reversing and managed to get them out of the wind. The damage was done though and they were all laying pretty much flat and looking real sad. I didn't get any pics, too pissed off at the whole thing. Not something one should get mad at nut still on edge from work. Can't seem to unwind. Surely not good for the health.


1st January 2026
Happy New year! Time to relax with a Quorum Maduro carona and some whisky. Baccy was back to its sheltered position and mostly uprightish but it had grown up from the flat position so ended up with a bunch of S shape stalks. Amazingly after having a good look there wasn't too much actual damage. Some of the lower leaves had shredded but the bulk of it was looking ok. Nutrient seemed to be doing a bit but still a lot of yellow to the leaves and one of the Havana 608s was pretty much white. That one got old potting mix that had been sitting around in a bag. Wee bit of growth on the runts I had added to the raised garden bed.

Off to an uneven start!

I ain't wasting a single gram of this stick. Pretty mild for the first inch and then the flavour started to come thorugh. These have the most stereotypical cigar shape and smell according to my preconceived ideas of cigars. I really enjoy them. Reasonably mild on the nicotine and has lots of smoke and that thick ripe maduro flavour. I can get through a whole stick without turning green at all.








4th January 2026
Many days have passed and I have moved the baccy back to the shelter from the southerly wind that is on it's way. Leaves still quite yellow so was doing all the research about the cause of such. Did some foliar spray for increased nutrition but put it down to mostly crap soil and early start to the season. If anything they would just ripen sooner. I had them in the ground (bags) on the 30th November (not noted above, I may edit and add that in) so they have been going 5 weeks already so not doing too bad.
The rando VG is also being neglected in the glass house with another Hab 2000 and Criollo but is looking pretty good!



6th January 2026
The seedlings are up!


8th January 2026
One of the Criollo is mostly toast and falling over if you look at it funny so I thought I would pull it from the bag and have a look at the root ball and then see if it would survive being stuck back in. Not that impressive even tho roots were coming out the bottom of the bag. I have concluded that a smaller bag will suffice especially if supplementing with hydro nutrient on the regular. I'm going to try same diameter bag but shorter in height, maybe 200mm so it is more of a disc than an a cylinder.




Seems fine. Lanky as. Probably half the size it should be.

 

[Fleabag]

8th January 2026 continued

Also put the neglected ice cube tray seedlings into some small bags. Fill the bag half way, pull the cube out carefully, pop it in bag and fill up the gaps. I'm sure you all needed the explanation... lol. It is interesting to see how the roots head to the holes in the corners. Don't need to fluff them up much since they are already heading in a good direction. Less transplant shock perhaps. I haven't noticed any ever really. Next day there will be roots poking out the bottom of the bag.





Re-potted some plum tree saplings while I was at it. From the small hydro bag into a larger diameter bag with the same height. Try get the root ball into a good size disc. It's nice to see the root ball looking like that, not all bound up around the inside of a plastic pot. We will see if it continues to spread out in a tree like fashion.






11th January 2026
Last day of my holiday. Very disappointing. Got to go back on the 12th and I don't even work Mondays usually. Seedlings looking pretty good. I'll remove the runty ones and organise them so they look a bit neater. Rolled a few cigars also, pretty much the only ones during the break. I used the cigar mould this time and then wrapped them manually and they turned out not bad. a bit lumpy but they look good in the humidor .

 

[StoneCarver]

That's a very interesting way to make your own grow-bags. I never thought to use a therma-sealer.

 

[Fleabag]

That's a very interesting way to make your own grow-bags. I never thought to use a therma-sealer.

Pretty sure I saw the idea on the net, maybe one of Larry Halls vids? Certainly faster than setting up the sewing machine. Sometimes the seam comes apart at the top if you grab it right there but they are cheap so I don't worry too much. We have a sealer at work without the vacuum but it is a bit hot and fast and makes a weak join. The vac sealer is a lot slower so it melts the weed mat more evenly for a stronger join.

I tried with hair straighteners also but it was a fine line between not heating enough and melting straight to the device. Luckily I don't have a wife (lol, naa it's probably better to have a wife though risk of being stabbed would go way up) and my hair is only 10mm long so it doesn't matter if I wreck the hair straighteners. Why do I have hair straighteners then I hear you say? Probably trying them to bend acrylic for a specific job one time.

I have reused some of the small bags 5-6 times and they are still fine. Been using them for all sorts of seedlings for the garden.

 

[StoneCarver]

Not knowing any better, I would have used a sewing machine. I do have two. One for technical/detailed/fine sewing. The other for heavy duty sewing; this one is an old Singer treadle operated sewing machine. I don't have a wife either. So then why do I have not one but two sewing machines? Well, I sew stuff for myself. Currently, I have a pile of pants I need to repair. I can save myself a couple hundred dollars if I repair them all instead of buying new pants. "the economy hates this one trick."

 

[Fleabag]

Exactly! Don't need to buy new stuff all the time. I ripped the arse out of my stubbies yesterday. They are not repairable sadly.

Had a bit of a cyclone come through last night which looks to have wrecked the top half of the country. It was gusting 40+kts from the East which is not ideal, no shelter at all where we are. The practically useless amount of wind protection I jimmied up seemed to work though so not much wind damage to my baccy but a lot of rain damage/bruising to the leaves. A large portion of my top leaves on my mostly primed plants are going to be no good and the larger leaves are all but wrecked on my younger ones in my raised garden. It is switching around to a Westerly right now and looks to be up to 30+kt gusts. Just as exposed but I got some wind breaks put up at 5am this morning so we should be ok. Not that it matters, the damage is done. Good thing I have another bunch of seedlings to get in the ground in a few weeks. Looks like the Havana 608s in the bags are mostly fine, they were pretty sheltered down off the trailer.

 

[deluxestogie]

Bob

 

[Fleabag]

Thanks Bob! The infrastructure around here is less than ideal for any sort of actual wind mitigation plan so a few stakes in the ground with some wind break mesh is about all I could muster up. It has mostly worked, sort of, and this storm has been a good test. The storm was far worse than expected, 270+mm of rain recorded in some places, land slides into peoples houses where it is just unheard of. Massive flooding all over the country. The side of the Mt Maunganui gave way and took out the hot pools and a bunch of people camping. Dang, I was looking out my window worrying about my baccy plants. We got away very lightly this time.

Interestingly, the leaves which had the transparent water damage/bruising seem to have fixed themselves. It's so odd, I have no idea why they would be all fine this afternoon. This wasn't at all the case last season when the leaves just stayed like that and ended up as thin green patches on my cigars. There is still physical damage but nothing I can't smoke when it's dry.




I have adjusted the wind fences around a bit, this pic is facing west directly into the 30-40kph wind. They are deflecting it a bit but mainly just smoothing out the gusts so it is more of a gentle whoosh and not a hard destructive whabam. The baby baccos took a a beating, about 70mm of rain in about 5 hours. Should come back good with a few warm sunny days. The leaves on the ground are the first few on each plant, wanted a good amount of stalk in the ground not just the root ball. I have noticed roots growing halfway up one of my plants which perhaps means having some stalk in the ground should sprout some roots and make it stronger.

 

[Fleabag]

Back to the post grow log

14th January 2026
Seedlings are getting larger and looking good. The hydo gutter plants are starting to grow pretty quick and the ones in the raised garden have put on a good bit of size in 10 days. The trailer baccy hasn't changed a great deal but tips starting to yellow. Surely they can't be getting ripe already, they have only been in the bags about 7 weeks. Maybe the early start or lack of nutrients? I did top them weeks ago as buds appeared so maybe they are early. Weather has been quite warm and not too windy now that I'm back at work and not much else going on.
Left to right Hav 608, Cri 98, Flor Sum, Hab 2000.


Havana 608s on the left row, Criollo 98s to the right by the kale. They grow so fast, except the far left Havana, its a runt.

Florida Sumatra in the centre. It's counterpart got dug up by the cat/chicken/magpie/compost rat so there is just one. Habano 2000 on the right. It's counterpart is the Habano from last season with all its stalks removed and one sucker left to see what will happen.

Havan 608s sitting on the ground. I move them out into the sun if the wind isn't blowing a gale. Excuse the rangi pile of tyres. They are still fully functional, I just have the ATs on the Jimny and these ones are the crappy road ones.

Trailer baccy still all about the same size and still got that yellow hue to them and some yellowing starting around the tips and edges.


17th January 2026
Got high wind coming and it's going to be from the south. I could move the trailer around to safety this time but thought stuff it, I'm going to pull the lower 2/3, the volado and seco? The leaves aren't getting any larger anyway and I don't want to risk losing my crop knowing more adverse conditions are coming anyway. I'm going to leave the stronger upper leaves on as they will probably be fine in a bit of wind and need to ripen. 90% or more of the leaves are fully intact. The damaged ones are fully usable too. Some of the Florida Sumatra leaves have brown spots I think from airborne spray. Should be fine as they aren't holes and it's interesting to have odd things on a wrapper sometimes.


It's a huge stack of leaves! So much more than I had last season so pretty happy as I am only part way through. It is pretty dry here even though its looking cloudy so I'm going to cure them between towels again. Flip them around at 5pm and check them and then at again at 5am before work. Make sure they are not getting mould and get some air on them.




Also picked up a soil tester off aliexpress for $80nzd. Everything is off aliexpress ay haha. Bit late to the party but still got loads of plants to go so thought I would be interesting to check the soil around the place. Don't have to muck around with bottles and liquids or sending off samples you just stick it in the ground and it gives you a pretty good indication of things right on your phone.

Checked it in distilled water, rain water, hydro nutrient, and some random soils around and it seems to be in the ball park as far as I can tell. It shows temp, moisture, ph, N P K etc. It shows low levels in places where the plants are not doing great and you can see the soil is just old topsoil. Shows higher levels in places where the soil is dark and full of worms having been mulched and feed but still low. The ph of pretty much all of our soil shows as 7 to 7.4 which is not ideal. The plants in the hydro gutter show levels appropriate for what I'm using in it. It doesn't show the other nutrients but it at least gives a better idea of nutrients than taking a stab in the dark for the main ones and you can test all over the place in a few minutes.

Did a test on coco coir with rain water, coco coir with hydroponic nutrients, 20g of coco coir and then 20, 30, 40, 50, 60g (55g is saturation point of the mix) of water/nutrient. Interesting results. The coco coir is buffered so has some type of nutrients in there. Its not a perfect scientific test and results vary depending on how deep the probes are and how hard the soil is squished to them but shows it can actually magically somehow read those changes and give you a general idea on your soil situation. Such convenient tech!

	Soil Temperature ℃	Soil Moisture %	Soil EC μS/cm	Soil Salinity mg/L	Soil N Content mg/kg	Soil P Content mg/kg	Soil K Content mg/kg	Soil pH
Coco with rain and nutrient 20g-20g	17.7	27.0	232	185	43	7	52	7.03
Coco with rain and nutrient 20g-30g	17.9	37.2	313	249	52	10	65	7.03
Coco with rain and nutrient 20g-40g	18.0	45.6	530	422	76	17	98	7.09
Coco with rain and nutrient 20g-50g	18.4	53.9	776	614	103	26	135	7.12
Coco with rain and nutrient 20g-60g	18.5	59.6	960	758	123	32	163	7.15
Coco with rain 20g-20g	17.7	15.6	111	88	29	3	34	7.01
Coco with rain 20g-30g	17.8	43.4	208	165	40	7	48	7.04
Coco with rain 20g-40g	18.0	50.3	196	156	39	6	47	7.08
Coco with rain 20g-50g	18.2	54.6	182	144	37	6	45	7.11
Coco with rain 20g-60g	18.3	61.7	220	174	41	7	50	7.09

It shed some light on why my big bagged plants were showing chlorosis most of the time and never really got that nice dark healthy green. Always a pale yellow green. They still grew pretty good but could have been potentially much better.

	Soil Temperature ℃	Soil Moisture %	Soil EC μS/cm	Soil Salinity mg/L	Soil N Content mg/kg	Soil P Content mg/kg	Soil K Content mg/kg	Soil pH
Trailer Tobacco A	21.2	40.7	183	137	37	6	45	7.21
Trailer Tobacco B	21.2	51.1	363	273	57	12	72	7.26
Trailer Tobacco C	21.2	35.4	78	58	22	2	25	7.29
Trailer Tobacco D	21.2	35.8	141	105	33	4	38	7.29
Grass by trailer	22.6	34.3	54	39	15	2	17	7.26
Tobacco Havana 608	22.3	37.0	63	46	18	2	20	7.31
Tobacco Havana 608b	21.3	39.6	165	123	35	5	42	7.21
Tobacco Havana 608c	21.5	35.6	77	57	22	2	25	7.29

I found four different ranges of typical nutrient concentration on the net and it looks like my soil needs some amendments no matter what range is used. Different plants prefer different ranges but at least I know any help I give the soil is going to be beneficial.

	TYPICAL SOIL CONCENTRATION (MG/KG)
NUTRIENT	from info book	or	or	or
Nitrogen (N)	90-120	50-200	40-120	30-150
Phosphorus (P)	10-20	10-50	20-120	3-40
Potassium (K)	150-200	100-300	70-350	30-200

 

[Fleabag]

19th January 2026
Got home from work and dug a new impromptu vege patch in a position where it can hopefully be protected from the wind a bit better. I roped dad into helping with his tiller so we got it done in a few hours. Seems like it was a dumping ground for old soil from the nursery that used to be here. Dug up some areas of potting mix looking stuff but for the most part it is good dark worm filled soil. Gave it a good load of ammonium sulphate, magnesium sulphate and blood and bone. Hopefully the sulphates will bring the ph down to a more suitable level for tobacco and increase my yield. Added some cheap compost on there to fluff it up a bit.





Looking good!

20th January 2026
Seedlings are still getting bigger and the primed leaves are getting quite yellow after a few days. Potential cyclone is on its way so thought it would be a good idea to get out in the rain and plant all of the hydro gutter tobacco. They are starting to shoot away and I don't want it getting tall and lanky so got them in the ground asap. Need all that growth energy to go into growing roots, not long skinny stalks.






22nd January 2026
Massive storm last night caused major flooding and slips, blew trees down, wiped out peoples homes but somehow as already posted above the tobacco survived. I got the most yellow of the leaves hung on wires to make the most of the humidity in the air to stop them flash drying but they should be fine with how yellow they are. Humidity is about 65% even though it is still raining and its quite warm. I have a fan moving air around the hung leaves to prevent any mould patches.

Quite a few of the leaves have this weird greenish translucent looking thing going on. It's not furry like mould, seems to be where the veins are. If you have any ideas let me know. Will see how it looks in the morning.

 

[Fleabag]

24th January 2026
Seems like the leaves are drying a bit fast so got them moved into my bench with a damp towel across the front to hopefully keep some of the moisture in. Put a PC fan in there to blow the air around a bit so we will see how that goes.
The bagged Havana 608s are getting some good size leaves but not much height and the trailer tobacco tops haven't changed much. I also started planting the current batch of seedlings into the small bags for the glass house since they are looking pretty good. Still way to small to transplant normally but seemed to work the last couple of times. Pulled out one of my cigars and enjoyed that as I worked. It must has been my usual mix as it had plenty of flavour but the draw was a bit tight. Still enjoyable though.






Still got chlorosis going on the with upper middle leaves. After even more reading and such it sounded like it was potentially lack of iron possibly caused by the high soil ph. Adding magnesium, more nitrogen, hydro nutrients what have everything etc hasn't really had much effect at all. really hard to get a good pic but with human eyes it stands out. So the prior evening I gave the the plants a foliar spray of iron sulphate as directed but potentially left something in the sprayer that has damaged the a good amount of the leaves. There was a bit of water in the bottom of the sprayer from when I (think) rinsed it last but maybe that wasn't the case. I don't use it for herbicide but do use it to vinegar/salt spray weeds on occasion. Or it could be the recommended iron sulphate concentration was too high, who knows. Either that or the hard rain damage is finally starting to show? Either way got a lot of necrosis patches on the leaves now but not too worried with 26 odd seedlings and the others recently put in the ground. Lesson learned. reduce ph of soil so proper ion exchange can happen or some other chemistry things and allow iron to be taken up into the plant easier.
Any ideas or recommendations let me know.




Curing leaves are 50% looking good and 50% looking not like what happened last time I cured leaves. Some are doing the exact normal thing like the first pic and a bunch are doing weird lines or speckles like the next few.





A lot of the smaller early bottom leaves have green speckles like this.


Instead of looking normal like these



Guess we will see what happens in the kiln. Won't know for sure if they suck until I roll them and smoke them.

 

[Fleabag]

25th January 2026
Ran out of small mesh bags for the seedlings so made up a bunch more.

Vacuum sealer DIY grow bag
I'm using non woven polyprop weed mat. The cheap stuff found at the hardware store that never stops a single weed. The rolls I get are 900mm (36") wide so I usually make the bags in divisions of that unless I want something specific.

The Vacuum sealer is some generic one about 300mm wide. It has a seal only mode which works perfect. Let it do its cycle and when it clicks off just wait for a few seconds for it to cool before popping it open or the join will be stuck to the heater. I have used the bag sealer from work but it is far too aggressive. It goes full blast for a an adjustable amount of time, so like full blast for 1 second. The weed mat is pretty thin and it just melts into nothing instantly. It gets a much better join if heated slowly so it melts to itself nicely.

How I work out the blank size.
Decide the diameter, multiply by 3 (because we ain't NASA and its close enough). That gets us the blank length. Decide the height and add on about half the diameter. That gets us the blank width. Eg. I want a 100mm dia x 100mm tall pot so that would be 300x150 for the blank. In reality you lose a bit on the join so end up with approx. 90mm dia x 100mm tall. Plant don't care.

These are the common sizes I use.
300x150 makes approx. 90mm dia x 100mm tall bag
450x200 makes approx. 140mm dia x 130mm tall bag
600x300 makes approx. 200mm dia x 200mm tall bag
900x450 makes approx. 290mm dia x 300mm tall bag
Measurements are very approximate, your mileage may vary.

So I need a bunch of small net bags for my remaining 12 seedlings. Blank is 300x150mm and makes a 90mm dia x 100mm tall bag. After the first one I decided I wanted 80mm tall so chopped the next bunch at 300x130mm


Fold the blank in half and seal the edge to make a tube


Turn it 90° and seal what will be the the bottom


Should look like this. Ignore the crease going through the centre.


Next you open the bag and rotate it 90° so the side seam is in centre when flattened and the top seam sort of forms a diamond when you flatten fold it down.


Then seal the corner of the diamond across the seam.


This needs to be about the same length as the distance between the two seams or somewhat close.


Then flip it inside out and you have a nice square bottom that sits pretty flat. You can cut the ears off but I generally don't bother.


Once you get an assembly line going you can pump through quite a few or even do two at a time.

And then bag the rest of my seedlings.


Last season I got my seedlings into the ground on the 7th Feb. I think these are going to need more than 2 weeks to get to a size worth sticking in the ground so looks like I am going to be a week or two behind this season. No big deal as this season is so screwed up weather wise we may end up with a warm autumn and I already have a much larger haul of leaves than I did last year.

 

[Fleabag]

1st February 2026
We have had some shocking weather, more strong wind, 14°C over night, not very fun but things are still ticking along nicely. Had a few nice days finally so plucked all of my trailer Criollo 98 and Florida Sumatra Viso and Ligero back on the 28th Jan to free up some big bags and trailer space. The Havana 608s which seem to be in limbo have been relocated to the trailer to hopefully get some more sun. I think they need warmer weather in their main growth time to get to a really good size. I'm hoping the ones that are currently seedlings will grow massive like last seasons ones in the hopefully warmer weather, not that I need many. The stalky Habano 2000s I have left as is to see what happens to the upper leaves. The ones I plucked off the other plants are all yellowing nicely so I'm guessing these ones would too but I want to get as much Habano flavour I can out of them.

Havana 608s looking pretty good, not quite the size of last seasons ones, probably a bit early for them.


The new hydro gutter seedlings are growing pretty quick, doesn't take much, a couple of sunny hot days and they double in size. Still watering with either rain water or 1/2 strength nutrient. A few roots are poking out here and there so I need to let them dry off every now and then but I don't to risk them getting cooked while I'm at work like some of the last ones.


The leftover seedlings (of which some got cooked) I planted before the cyclone came through are starting to get some good size going too. Not massive but quite a bit more size compared to the last photo back on the 20th Jan. Will be interesting to see what these ones do. They were getting a bit stalky in the hydro gutter hence the rush to plant. I pulled 2-3 leaves off the bottom of the stalks and planted them quite deep. They seem to be doing pretty well. There is a bunch of soil amendments in this patch and the leaves are a nice dark green (for now) unlike my other anemic soil which produced much lighter green leaves. The wind breaks seem to be doing the job too. Grass and about 9000 kale seeds have germinated too so I'm going to have to do a bit of weeding.


Found a couple of white fluffies on the mini lathe bench leaves so came up with a better way of hanging them. Got a bit of PVC pipe and tied a copper wire around it and strung the leaves properly front to front, back to back so they have more even air flow. The pipes fit up onto the ledge the holds the thin steel shelf above which is really handy. Pretty easy to take in and out to add leaves or for a closer inspection. Hooked up a big PC fan on one end blowing across the top as it seems to be the fat bit of the stems that get mould first. Seems to have done the trick. Today we are in the clouds so humidity is way up which brought them up to 89% RH. Not ideal so have the dehumidifier going and the fan blowing. It is the perfect day for re hydrating dry leaves to the perfect case for speed aging. Nowhere near ready to start that process yet and I'm going to have another 30 odd plants worth to harvest that haven't even grown yet. Hopefully these ones all get to a point where I can bag them and free up the space for the next lot.

I have noticed something interesting with the curing leaves also that I can't get my head around. Some of the leaves no matter the variety or plant position seem to be quite alive, nice and firm, hold their shape etc as they yellow off and even while hanging. Some of the others wilt and become floppy and rubbery. These ones seem to stay quite green and then go a bit yellow but more straight to dark brown. Not sure what it is. Doesn't matter if I washed them or not, it seems completely random.


The Havanas in the old raised garden are about the same size as the bagged ones in the trailer. They were massive last season. Hopefully they perk up a bit now its getting even warmer. Probably not. They will probably get destroyed in the next wind we get.


Still well ahead on last season and well up on the leaf quantity harvested. Already have about three times the amount if it all ages nicely. Still got the Havana to harvest and then the future plants so my chances of actually having some nicely cured and aged with some nice undamaged tasty wrappers are way up. I'll be able to roll and enjoy cigars every day almost.

 

[Fleabag]

11th February 2026
Quick update time! Nothing too exciting happening. It has been hot and somewhat sunny, a bit of rain a few days ago over night, a thunder storm is rolling past but missing us by a few km.

The hydro gutter seedlings are probably getting big enough to get in the ground now. Amazing how much they grow in less than two weeks. I will give them some more full power nutrients tomorrow morning and then let them dry off a bit so they are easier to pop out of the bags. I read that they should be about 6" when they are ready to go. Is that length of stalk, total height from the dirt to tallest leaf, length of largest leaf? They should be about the same size as the last ones I planted by the weekend at this rate so should be fine. Last season I got my first batch in the ground on the 7th Feb so will only be a week behind.


The seedlings roasted greenhouse seedlings that I planted on the 20th before the cyclone are getting really good now. Next year I may aim for a big batch for the same timing. about a week ago I dug a shallow trench around each and added amendments to the trench and then covered them over. A good amount of blood and bone, some ammonium sulphate and magnesium sulphate, a bit of iron sulphate as the PH is still high and I want to avoid iron deficiency since that is what my other plants looked to have (rough guess, I'm no expert and I haven't done any actual soil chemical analysis). Watered in with a bunch of sulphur solution to hopefully start to lower the PH along with the other sulphates. Seems to be working as the leaves are a nice dark green and they are looking healthy.

Here is an aerial view from the other side from the 8th Feb to show their position a bit better.


Trailer tobacco tops are getting gnarly looking. Some yellowing due to continuous nutrient deficiency and some looking pretty normal. I'll probably pull them this weekend and chop the stalks and let the suckers at the bottom grow



Looks like I harvested all of the bottom half Havana 608 leaves on the 7th Feb too. 64 leaves form the 6 trailer tobacco plants and 27 from the 2 raised garden ones. a pretty good stack. The trailer ones that were somewhat nutrient deprived are yellowing nicely. They feel very much alive still, hold their shape etc. The raised garden ones probably needed another couple of weeks. Most of them wilted to floppy and soft and are struggling to yellow. Harvested before sunrise on same day, were nice and crispy on the plant, not sure what the difference is ay.
Trailer 608s

Raised garden 608s


Here is an example of the leaf floppyness. First one is from the bagged trailer 608 and the second is from the raised garden. Probably completely normal but if anyone has noticed this difference before and knows what it means let me know in the comments below. Don't forget to like and subscribe and click the notification icon so you know when I release new content. Oh wait this isn't youtube. My OCD nature wants to know the reason behind oddities like this.



I also made up some bud bags similar to what Bob posted in one of his grow blogs. I made them from white polyprop frost cloth that is similar to the stuff I use for the pots. Made them the same way, like a tube. Probably not long enough but they only take a few mins to make and the vacuum sealer can only do about 300mm at a time. I made these before I saw Bobs grow log which showed how much the flower head shoot away. I may have to make some longer ones but hopefully 600mm is enough.








They are a lot denser than Bobs ones but hopefully they do the trick. I still have loads of seeds so not too worried if they don't. The Habano 2000 sucker from last seasons stump (far right at the top right corner of the black wind shield) is cranking away really fast too, will be interesting to see what eventuates. From left to right, Havana 608>Criollo 98>Florida Sumatra and then the Habano 2000s. There used to be a tree there but I pruned it so hard it karked it (intentionally) so chopped it out so I can use the wood for interesting things.

Rando pic of the 608 very bottom leaves I pulled earlier. They are all curing really dark. I just left them between the towels and they are drying pretty flat which was nice. Do 608 bottom lugs usually go that dark? They will go into cigars and turn into smoke whether they have flavour or not.

 

[Fleabag]

Couple of things I want to know more about/confirm for knowledge and leaf sorting reasons but haven't seen mentioned or overlooked:

- Some of the very bottom leaves are quite thick and leathery/rubbery, smoothish, kinda foamy(?) Generally large. Are these classed as Volado as apposed to Seco? They are not thin as I have read Volado are, perhaps they get thin when dry?
- As they get slightly higher, up to 2/3 up the leaves feel more soft and velvety like a normal leaf, big like the lower ones but not leathery. These would be the Seco?
- The ones above these are even more velvety and soft and obviously smaller so probably Viso with the even smaller tops being Ligero.

Does that sound about right? There is a clear difference between the texture of the leathery rubber ones and the soft velvety ones of the same size. I'll sort them now into their leaf positions while I can still tell the difference if that is the case. I didn't really notice one the ones that are already hanging.

 

[deluxestogie]

Does that sound about right?

"About" right is really as close as any of this gets. "Volado" in the cigar marketing world is called "flyers and trash" in the Virginia and burley realm. The divisions of stalk level that separate volado | seco | viso | ligero | corona are arbitrary. If you see a sketch of the relative divisions, it seems well defined. It's not.

Bob