FrostD’s First Grow Blog 2022

[FrostD]

Latest update (5 Days since last post)

Pulled out the garden hose on Sunday to dislodge as many aphids/honeydew. Tuesday night, I decided to chop off most of the leaf (since first frost May have hit Wednesday morning). I inspected each leaf and tried to rub off any remaining aphids. Then wrapped in bath towels until today.

Remaining plants outside. Going to let ‘em ride and see how they do with the temps and such we’ve been getting. May do a spritzing of some distilled water mixed with a few drops of dish soap or Castile soap to knock off the aphids on the remaining little leaves.

2x Besuki plants



2x Mexican Filler


18x Besuki Leaves



19x Mexican Filler



Rigged up a couple hanging lines and found some paper clips that were not in use





Basement Temp/RH reading on a freshly cracked open hygrometer:

 

[FrostD]

11 Days since last post.

The outdoor plants still aren’t doing so bad. Some more growth, even though we’ve had a couple nights hitting the 32F mark… if not the 34F-37F range. All of them have been spritzed with some filtered water, with a couple drops of some dawn dish soap. Aphid city! Applied the Soap/water spray yesterday & today. Did notice a difference from first application to today.

2x Mexican Filler




2x Besuki




The Indoor plants are definitely root bound and need new homes. Will be setting up a little Greenhouse tent in the basement within the next week or so. Have noticed some fungus gnats stuck to the leaf hairs and did notice 2x green aphids on another leaf.



Leaf up drying



Some look to be coloring along ok. Others may get stuck staying green. A few of the Mexican Filler appear to be picking up a dark brown.


Had to quarantine this fellow outside… too many aphids on them. I wanted to keep it isolated away from the other leaf & premium cigar collection.



Not giving up on this learning year! Lol

 

[Knucklehead]

You can rinse off the aphids with a water hose. It won't hurt the live green leaf. After they are color cured you should avoid rain or hosing off due to possibility of washing off nicotine and flavor.

 

[FrostD]

You can rinse off the aphids with a water hose. It won't hurt the live green leaf. After they are color cured you should avoid rain or hosing off due to possibility of washing off nicotine and flavor.

Appreciate the advice @Knucklehead . I’m hoping I get some more coloring *overall* sometime soon. We will see!

 

[Knucklehead]

Appreciate the advice @Knucklehead . I’m hoping I get some more coloring *overall* sometime soon. We will see!

I hate aphids. I don't mind hornworm holes but I hate the taste and flavor of dead aphids. Cleaning and screening seed pods covered with dead aphids leaves a horrible taste in my nose and mouth from breathing in the nasty critters. Especially when winnowing the chafe away from the seed. The pieces just waft up and go for the wet spots. Nose and mouth. Yuck. I hate aphids. Wash the seed pods that you plan to save for seed, too. Nasty stuff.

 

[FrostD]

I hate aphids. I don't mind hornworm holes but I hate the taste and flavor of dead aphids. Cleaning and screening seed pods covered with dead aphids leaves a horrible taste in my nose and mouth from breathing in the nasty critters. Especially when winnowing the chafe away from the seed. The pieces just waft up and go for the wet spots. Nose and mouth. Yuck. I hate aphids. Wash the seed pods that you plan to save for seed, too. Nasty stuff.

I 100% agree! Hate everything about them. Such a pain to get rid of also. Just don’t get me started on fungus gnats!

 

[deluxestogie]

"Predators (which may consume all or parts of aphids) include green and brown lacewings, lady beetles, hover flies, midges, bigeyed bugs, damsel bugs, soldier beetles, and blister beetles. In many cases, both adults and larvae (or nymphs) feed on aphids."

Aphids and Their Natural Enemies

Bob

 

[FrostD]

22 days since last post…

All outdoor plants have been done for a couple weeks. Just have these remaining 7 plants staying indoors to see how far they can get. I’m thinking will remain pretty “runty” in pots. Did the whole plastic over the windows in the sunroom which has definitely helped keep in the heat. However, we are seeing temps in the 70’s this week is very odd this time of year.

Top to bottom:
-Mexican Filler
-Small Black Mammoth
-Besuki


Shelf left to right:
-Mexican Filler
-Jalapeño pepper plant brought inside
-Mexican filler

2 pots on green 5 gal buckets in front (left to right)
-Small Black Mammoth
-Mexican Filler


Crazy how I almost chucked these 7 plants, thinking they won’t produce anything.

Of the 4 outdoor plants I needed to harvest, due to pending frost. The drying has been a little odd. I think I know where I went wrong already. Perhaps, I hung them too fast, opposed to using a towel to stack them in to help color cure. Perhaps, they didn’t have enough time to mature as well. The Mexican Filler has almost a 100% flash dry green issue. The Besuki has been doing some nice yellowing to brown & has been a nice vigorous grower on my experimental 1st ish year attempt.






Special shout-out to @skychaser ! Some new varieties to try out this year! I do have to give major kudos to Skychaser for his communication, packaging, turn around time, and how many seeds he included in each variety! The best bang for your buck IMHO!

Also, a shout out to @deluxestogie and his book “Tobacco Plant Varieties for Home Growers” that helped me narrow down a list of 2 pages worth of varieties to try, down to 20 to start out with for next year. Will I pop seeds for all varieties, most likely not, but just in case. Lol. Perhaps some of my local buddies will want to toss a plant or two in their yards to test out their green thumbs.

May update this blog again, if I can get some useable leaf that I can toss in a kiln (which I still need to get materials for and assemble).

 

[FrostD]

19 Days since last post. Been a little busy on a vacation week trip to Mexico. Then a 1 day turn around time for a week (work) trip to Vegas. Home for a couple weeks now. Boy has it gotten cold here in Wisconsin! The sunroom plants are remarkably not dead, but some have gotten aphids. Pretty surprising that on days where the outside temps have been 21F, the sunroom has been a low of 40. Perhaps my hygrometer is way off as I tried watering some plants this morning and the wet soil showed some icing/frost.

Debating on just cleaning off the aphids and chopping within the next few days, or just letting me ride to see what they will do. I need to clean up a spot in the basement this week and setup a little greenhouse still. Depending on timing and on the aphid scenario, May try to bring some of the sunroom tobacco plants into the greenhouse.

Anyways, some pics (all of them are very stunted and small leaves. Not to mention very stretchy due to me neglecting proper lighting this year) :

 

[FrostD]

8 days since last post….

Kept 2x “Mexican Filler” plants in pots. Now just sitting on towels in the kitchen. Probably just going to push these through winter as long as I can. Using them more for learning experience. Resilient little buggers coming in from a pretty cool (uninsulated, but plastic film over windows) sunroom.






Some random “Besuki” & “Mexican Filler” leaves I have hanging in the kitchen:



Hanging up in basement drying now. I ended up throwing away all my previous “Mexican Filler” leaves I hung up individually. They all flash dried green. The “Besuki” leaves have done some color curing. May keep them hanging until next year or if I decide to build a kiln. Also, stalked cut down (after an extensive aphid cleaning with just my hands)
Edit: 5x plants. 2x “Mexican Filler”, 1x “Besuki”, 2x “Small Black Mammoth”.

 

[FrostD]

Roughly 8 months after my last post from last years grow log. Last year being my first attempt at growing a few varieties of tobacco. Learned a lot after starting so late in the season. A good amount of leaf flash dried green. What I was able to salvage is shown below. Some still have some green spots. I pulled down everything that was hanging in the basement a put into my “casing chamber/cooler” in order to flatten the leaves out. Will be putting into gallon or 2 gallon zip lock bags and leave them open for a week or so to dry back up. No kiln here, so may need to just let them naturally age until I can find time to rig up a kiln of sorts. Need to explore and research options. For now though, will be in the ziplocks with name & month/year I harvested them. They do have a little bit of a sweet tobacco smell to them. Camera is making some look reddish or darker than they actually are. Some are a little more dark tan to brown, but the majority are a light tan color.

2x “Mexican Filler”


17x Besuki leaves