Lefty Poor Man Grow log

[Leftynick]

Hello all. This is my first year growing anything. I have very little experience growing thing but so far, some of my plant turned out to be okay. Hopefully the tobacco will grow well. first some picture

This is how I start my tobacco. Just some potting soil and sprinkle the seed on top of it. I don't start my grow indoor as it is tropical climate after all and we have hot and humid temperature all year round. This way I save on using electricity for my starter growth. I water them once a day.


After they grow 4 or more leaves, I transfer them straight to the permanent pot. This is the pot I used, a recycled 1 gallon (5 Liter) cooking oil bottle that I get from my local hawker stall. As they will burn this bottle when they discarded, I am thinking I will do some good on this world by recycling these bottle into my growing pot. I know the plant is kind of small when I transfer them but this is what I do for my tomato and hot pepper plant so I think it will be okay. This is the spanish zimmer seed that I bought on ebay (spicy acres Canada)


This is the havanna seed I bought from ebay. It is russian seed but on the packaging it state that this is nicotiana alata seed. However the picture on the packaging is a typical tabaccum, with pink small flower. We'll see how this will turn out. Only one plant survive from many seed because of my carelessness. (I water them twice a day before and I think it what may cause them to die off. Rookie mistake)


These are my samsun plant. It is Samsun variety that I bought on ebay same store as the havanna seed. It is called samsun 85 and I bought this seed because of the description says that this plant have high point of smoke ability and aroma (I dont know how they use these point system though.


This is my biggest plant to date. hopefully it will grow bigger than this though I doubt it because of 1 gallon pot I put them in.


Lastly I want to share you all my grapevine, planted from red globe grape seed. I know a lot of people say grape grown from seed will not grow true to their parent plant but I plant them anyways.


some note on the seed and growing season-

As the title suggest, this is poor man's grow. I tried to find the cheapest seed available online to me. In Malaysia, we do grow tobacco for commercial but it is strictly for domestic and the seed is controlled by the goverment agency, and they will only sell to grower registered with them. so my only choice to find some seed is on ebay. The seed I bought only cost me USD1.50 free shipping. on my currency it is already considered pricey (1USD = 4.3MYR)

for the growing season, although it is possible to grow tobacco all year round in my country, I choose the worst weather for it. It is raining season currently and from my understanding, tobacco hate too much water. Raining season stop on February. Hopefully it will turn out okay.

 

[Tutu]

I was just responding to your introduction thread, only to realise that you have already started a grow log. That's great! Very curious to know where you live. I lived in Jitra, close to Alor Setar, for about 27 months. That was before my interest in tobacco, so I never really got around to looking for it in the area. I see you mentioning that there's Kasturi grown in Malaysia. Would be nice to see some pictures of it to determine if it is the same as the Kasturi on Jawa Timur.

You're doing great to get your grow started in these pots, just to get some experience of how tobacco grows, what it likes, and what it doesn't like. Obviously, giving it More growing space will enhance the size of your plants. We are also in the rainy season but you should still be able to grow your plants.

You said you were looking for a cheap way to obtain seeds and grow some tobacco. Let me send you some, so you can grow a few more plants and varieties later on!

 

[Leftynick]

I was looking at my plant this afternoon and find out that one of my samsun is suckering. This plant is a special case. It refuse to grow after taken down by by rainstorm so i remove the top leaves in attempt to force it to grow. After a week, the top started to grow and it start suckering. I think i will remove the sucker.

Some of the plant already show yellowing leaves. I think it is because of too much water, it has been raining all week.

This is my small gardenspace. I have to organise it this way to prevent goat and cow from munching on them. My landlord own the goat and cow and he will release them every afternoon and return them to penn/barn before dark. Tobacco plant were at the center while other plant become sort of fence for the tobacco. I cannot put on real fence because of the concrete floor.

 

[Brown Thumb]

You gonna need some bigger pots,
Off to a good start tho.
Good Luck, Bt

 

[Knucklehead]

Best of luck with your season. Kind regards.

 

[Leftynick]

You gonna need some bigger pots,
Off to a good start tho.
Good Luck, Bt

Best of luck with your season. Kind regards.

Thank you both of you. I will consider this as experimental as this is also my first year of growing. Will try to find better way or bigger pot the next time.

 

[squeezyjohn]

Always lovely to see people re-using and recycling everyday items to grow stuff ... the plants don't care what the plastic was originally made for as long as there's good soil and drainage! Also make sure you save your own seeds for next time ... then there's no worry where to get them in the future.

If you have any ground you can plant them out in ... they will be more successful there than in those pots. If you have very large pots it may work - but I always prefer in the ground.

 

[Leftynick]

Always lovely to see people re-using and recycling everyday items to grow stuff ... the plants don't care what the plastic was originally made for as long as there's good soil and drainage! Also make sure you save your own seeds for next time ... then there's no worry where to get them in the future.

If you have any ground you can plant them out in ... they will be more successful there than in those pots. If you have very large pots it may work - but I always prefer in the ground.

I will definitely bag my seed for sure. That is why I like growing my own, it is more like an investment. However, I heard that tobacco is extremely adapting plant. How many generation did you recommend before the tobacco changes it trait? I know one seed pod can last me for years, but i found that some plant change its trait as early as second generation.

I have some ideas for bigger pot next season. I cannot plant on the ground because I am renting here. And if there is space, it will be cow and goat grazing places. Wouldn't want them to munching on my plant.

 

[Leftynick]

A very sad week for me. My wife gone through 6 month pregnancy miscarriage last week. So i have been absence because I got a week off from my manager to accompany her in my in laws house and there is no internet wifi there. Sorry for all late reply private message.

A little update on my grow


The plant is still growing but the heavy rain make the leaves to become yellow early.

Can I just harvest the yellowed leaves? i know it will be tasteless but I rather see them smoked than wasted.

I think the daily rain also affect the growth of the plant. Most of my plant bud leaves severely wrinkly, and most of the wrinkly plant also have stunted growth.

These two are example of stunted growth because of wrinkly bud leaves. I wonder I need to fertilize the plant because of excessive rain wash out nutrient out of my pot? I know it is not common for Turkish to be fertilized. But right now my aim is only to get some smokable leaves rather than going for specific strain taste.


I have moved my Spanish Zimmer plant last week. Several plant did not make it and all my backup plant dies because of my absence.

And lastly, this is my Havanna plant only survivor. It's growing strong I hope.


Appreciate any input from members here to improve my tobacco plant growth.

 

[Tutu]

I feel very sorry for you and your wife. Horrible to hear such a sad thing. I hope you'll be alright.

If the leafs are yellow and healthy I'd keep them on. If they start wrinkling away you could pull them off. Or you could pull them of anyway. These won't be important leafs so you could do anything with them. also the leafs that get a funny shape. see of mine did too in their early stage but they turned out fine (only one of four kept doing this to new leafs). The rain is driving me crazy too. At least there are a few sun hours in the morning... Hope your Havana plant will get to a reasonable size!

 

[Leftynick]

Thank you. The child was supposed to be our first born. I am okay, sad, but okay. I hope my wife will recover soon.

I will pull them off because the yellowing leaves only consist of sand lug. Might be useful for some curing exercise. I get my little dutch seed bought from ebay few week back. I am doing sprout test with them to test the seed and my new organic soil I bought and maybe the sprouted seed will fill my excess pot.

 

[Leftynick]

Some yellowed lugs i collected. Cleaned using tap water. Lighter as size comparison.

 

[Leftynick]

Received a package on Friday. Thank you Tutu! This added to my cigar tobacco seed need for wrapper.




Hope I can grow it as well as you do. Looking at your kasturi plant, it can be promising. Just need to find a bigger pot.

 

[Tutu]

Great to hear that Lefty. If you do well, Corojo and Besuki should fill the wrapper niche. Amersfoort might even produce some.
Larger pots will definitely be a good step. Even the plants that you are growing now could still be transplanted into a bigger pot.
I've seen plants that seemed to have been transplanted too late do very well after all.
I'd do some window shopping in as many kedai runcit as you can find and ask around where the have big pots.
Or if there are any garden stores around you? Even Aneka, Eon, Tesco might have them (though more expensive).
Good luck with finding them, should be an interesting quest.

 

[Leftynick]

I have obtained several 3 gallon paint bucket. Maybe I will start the wrapper seed on them.The problem with bigger bucket is I need more soil, thus adding cost to my grow. So this will be project after my current grow, as I am making compost from my kitchen scrap, grass cutting and mango leaves around my home. Maybe I will ask some composted goat dung from my landlord.

I will let the current grow just to see whether the plant reach maturity or not. It is experiment after all, to see if I can grow tobacco, and whether I can smoke anything that I grow. Some of my Samsun plant are showing promise, not as big as your plant but I think the characteristic of oriental tobacco is it is smaller than regular tobacco. but the strange leaf formation severely stunted a couple of my plant. I think it's the rain that caused nutrition imbalance in the soil. Will update some picture tomorrow.

 

[Tutu]

Could you not dig up some soil somewhere? Go out of town for a bit and find a place where you can gather some soil? You could then mix it in with the compost you are making. Composting is always a good thing.

The plants you are growing now will reach maturity for sure. They will probably get less tall, and the leaf size will be smaller. But you will definitely be able to get some smokeable leaf from it. I had the same strange shapes of new leafs that formed on the plant with our Amersfoort grow. You can see it in the Amersfoort in Indonesia grow log and compare it with yours. When the plants get in a further stage they are likely to recover. New leafs in higher plant positions will not have this problem. Though one of my Amersfoort plants kept struggling a bit. I kept that one short. The leafs seem to be getting quite a different cure as well.

Looking forward to the pictures tomorrow. Tidur dulu iya.

 

[Leftynick]

As promised, some picture update.

This is the one that show some productivity.

The severely stunted plant


After further inspection, i found that the stunted plant's root are not developing as big as the promising one. I think the rain compacted my soil in the pot and prevent the root from fully forming. I used some clay soil from around my home, mixed with some organic black soil and composted grass clipping, put in layer. The layer as follow, clay, compost, clay, compost and black soil as topsoil. The root couldn't penetrate the clay layer, hence the inadequate root forming stunted the growth of the plant. Lesson learned there, I will mix my soil well before planting. This is why I considered this is my experiment grow. Thankfully, my later grow, the havanna and zimmer I used loamy soil found on my backyard instead of the clay soil, and mixed well before planting.

This is the havanna plant


And lastly my zimmer spanish plant.


My little dutch plant has germinated. Will fill the excess pot with them. I am considering on starting a besuki plant from Tutu on 3 gallon paint bucket grown in shade after this as test run.

 

[Leftynick]

Trying the yellowed leaves the first time. To my surprise, the smell resemble some of the commercial cigarette that i can get here. However, it doesn't stay lit. I need to lit the cigarette everytime i take a puff.




I think it need to dry a little longer.

 

[Tutu]

I suppose that's one of the reasons my plants didn't grow much bigger than they did. With too much watering, the soil becomes cemented which impedes the drainage. For my next grow, I will make a layer of gravel before putting putting the soil in. I will also top it with gravel. Regardless of whether you have a clay type soil or not, with bigger pots, the pressure will be larger which will obstruct the root system. This is also why some of our fruit seedlings died. Gravel it is. Can be a very easy construction. Just make sure the holes at the bottom of your pot are not getting choked. It should make a difference.

 

[Leftynick]

Found this while surfing the web.

http://ipm.ncsu.edu/tobacco/Scouting_Tobacco/troubleshooting_tobacco.html

It seems like my tobacco plant symptom is similar to what described as chemical burn. It is weird because I don't use any chemical on my grow, just some compost, chicken manure fertilizer and soil. Maybe the compacted soil make more sense. Or maybe the chicken manure fertilizer is mixed with some chemical that I don't know as I bought it. But I have stopped fertilizing few weeks ago.

Tutu, I always use grass clipping mulch on my other potted plant to prevent water from compacting the soil. But for tobacco, to avoid excess moisture I skip it entirely. maybe I can steal your idea of using gravel. I am using the layer to avoid the compacting soil issues. as my pot is transparent, I can see clearly that the root are not forming as they should be. they stop growing at the clay soil.