hemlock's 2025 grow blog

[Hemlock]

Virginia Gold is lush and quite mature. They all seem to be enjoying just being, even with some upside down leaves. While the leaf is mature and some edge yellowing, will wait until ripe before more priming. Besides, I will be away for a while, so will not be able to flue cure thus will have to let nature take its course and harvest when I can.

 

[Hemlock]

After 5 days of yellowing the Virginia Gold, did a day at 120F to wilt the tobacco, and start drying. lowered humidity by closing crock pot lid. The lamina is crispy but stems moist and plump. No aroma due to absence of moisture. Next step into the oven at 155F convection mode, for stem drying.

Here's a small mountain of about 20 full sized leaves prior to stem drying. Pleased with the bronze/orange colour. Hopefully have locked in the natural sugars. One or two offending leaves still have some green tinge so will isolate from rest of batch.

View attachment 56758

Here's the final result after stem drying in oven at 155 overnight. Humidified into low case to flatten the leaves for storage and to look nice. Not quite as perfect as WLT's Canadian Lemon. 20 leaves = 100 grams.

 

[Hemlock]

Some perfectly cured first priming I'm keeping for future pipe tobacco blending to enhance combustion. The lighting was remarkable this afternoon such that the leaves were transparent.

 

[Hemlock]

Thick, sticky and leathery Shirey leaf that fell off during stalk harvest. Nice specimen of this varietal leaf. Green stem, shiny surface and narrow.

 

[Hemlock]

Late planted Shirey, juvenile plant. A perfect looking plant. I topped this a week ago and now watching how it changes the leaf thickness. It has much more sun exposure than its earlier siblings and seems it has resulted in wider leaves than those grown with more shade. I expect it will take on the drooping characteristics as it matures and the leaves get heavy.

 

[Hemlock]

Ripening patch of Virginia Gold. As much as I would like to harvest, the leaves are so big I can only handle a dozen at a time in my humble kegerator flue curing chamber.

 

[Hemlock]

A few leaves air curing. Little Yellow and Shirey (dark green) makes a nice contrast.

 

[Hemlock]

Yenidje sun curing. Dries to nothing but is it ever easy to cure.

 

[Hemlock]

Shirey specimen maturing. This variety seems to be much more difficult to color cure but the plants are picture perfect. The leaves are deep green and as thick as paperboard.

 

[Hemlock]

the Virginia Gold patch is just aging, getting gnarly and maturing away. No heavy yellowing. The one tallest leaf is actually from a runaway sucker. Amazing how vigorous the growth is on this varietal.

Wonder if it's because of earlier season fertilizer. Was hoping to have the yellowing from bottom up but these leaves are just hanging on. Will be away for another week so harvest begins at month end for flue curing. Can only get 10 giant leaves in the kiln at a time.

The leaves are thick, sticky and brittle. I suspect it will all be strong flavoured and high nicotine. Hope the sugars have been retained and that I can fix them in place with the cure. Should be interesting in my pipe tobacco blending.

These plants were topped almost two months ago.

 

[Hemlock]

Hi folks
Season has come to an end for the main patch of 7 full season VA plants, topped back in early July. Still much more in the works with shed curing of dark air and burley etc.

Here's a photo of how really ripe Virginia Gold turned out after "flue" curing, which was my kegerator with a crock pot- about 100F and 90% RH. The leaf colour is very rusty, brown and orange. No bright yellow. It's consistent with WLT Ripe and Red VA I have bought in past. The leaves never really yellowed fully on the living plant. These are all mid and top plant. Could not avoid browning for some reason. The aroma is rich with caratenoids and the leaf is thick. I hope I converted starches to sugars with the temperature/RH ramping profile.

This photo is taken after the wilting stage, raising temps to 120 F and reducing RH. Stems will then get dried out in convention oven at 155-160F.

Will report on flavour as a pipe tobacco after it's all done.

 

[Hemlock]

Shirey specimen maturing. This variety seems to be much more difficult to color cure but the plants are picture perfect. The leaves are deep green and as thick as paperboard.

View attachment 57214

Here is what this Shirey plant looked like at maturity before stalk harvest.

Leaf width is markedly broader compared with those planted earlier in spring. It could be related to angle of sunshine. The growth characteristics of this varietal for leaf width seem to be dependent on light conditions. Below is a late season full sunshine plant. Short stature, heavy, large and droopy leaves. Quite sticky. The aroma of air cured Shirey seems to be quite nutty so far. Leaves are like leather and dry to a thick texture. Should be great in the pipe after a lengthy aging period.

 

[deluxestogie]

Looks wonderful. ARS-GRIN says it's "chest-high".

TC 617 GRIN-Global

npgsweb.ars-grin.gov

Although I have never grown Shirey, I would assume it to be a great pipe blend ingredient, as well as a candidate for cooking into Cavendish (for yet another blend ingredient).

Bob

 

[Hemlock]

Looks wonderful. ARS-GRIN says it's "chest-high".

TC 617 GRIN-Global

npgsweb.ars-grin.gov

Although I have never grown Shirey, I would assume it to be a great pipe blend ingredient, as well as a candidate for cooking into Cavendish (for yet another blend ingredient).

Bob

Thanks for sharing. I suppose with inflorescence chest height would have been possible but with topping stalled at waist height.

I will have try the cavendish process suggestion, since the crop yielded plenty to experiment with.

 

[deluxestogie]

The ARS-GRIN standard for tobacco plant height measurement is from the ground to the base of the crow foot.

Bob