It starts! 2013 tobacco growing season!

[squeezyjohn]

Little tobacco growing update ...


Here are the tobacco plantlets - still in their cardboard tubes but now outside in the unheated greenhouse with a new solar powered drip irrigation system to keep the bottom of the tray wet (from rainwater collected from the top of the greenhouse!) - The strips of copper around the trays are to stop slugs and snails. The plants are now thinned to one plant per pot.

Most varieties are doing very well - but Del Gold are still tiny and Alida are a complete flop! There are 3 tiny seedlings that are still as tiny as when they emerged. Yellow Twist Bud is very vigorous! These plants are just over a month from germination

Then there's the rustica which I germinated much later on:

Growing like the true weed it is!

Meanwhile on the allotment I have been going for an hour or so every day and getting the ground prepared for the tobacco ...

... and the potatoes, leeks, onions, carrots, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, parsnips, tomatilloes, yacon, oca, ...

The reason I'm getting things organised is that I'll be going away for a bit over 2 weeks - I cannot guarantee that the plants will stay well watered! So I have got this solar irrigation up and running.

It's a great thing! It pumps from my water butt back in to the greenhouse at 3 hour intervals ... the amount of water depends on the amount of sunlight ... so the hotter it gets - the more water they get ... perfect in principle!

[Faylool]

I haven't gotten seed set but expect them soon can be 10 days two weeks from England to here in Ooregon. I have my pots ready. Found many things at the second hand stores. He Spring is not going to change back to Winter here like it can anymore this year. I feel sure of it. This will be my first gardening in decades! It will be how I celebrate the final long over due exciting of my evicted squatter ruining my fun downstairs. Reclaim my land and my home and do my little thing! That will be no later than April 17th here if it comes to that. Which would be a Sheriff accompanying me and offering him a trip to jail or the open door out. I never in my life before got involved with such horrible people that require law interventions. It happens everyday! I find it very abnormal behavior! Live and learn. I'm taking his " I make my own laws" ass to small claims court too just to see what they can do about getting the money ( cheap cheap rent, trying to help a person) he hasn't been paying while squatting. Looking forward to telling him it's his dime if he wants to keep squatting until Sheriff day , that I for one wouldn't want to be spending my money on a place I wasn't wanted anymore...ya know? He might say what money....sounds just like him and that's where the conversation ends. Yup and there is more to the story! His sons searing 180 days because I allied the sheriff on him when his GF and him were fighting downstairs. His second offense on assault. Vengeance is mine switch the Lord but whenit falls in my lap while I'm being emotionally abused ( threatening my animals 16 of them) and not paying rent so I have to worry about utilities etc...and using using using like I'm an old lady helpless doormat. Well, I was a nice person. Easy going, flexible, tolerant until my $4,000.00 saddle disappeared a long with a few other things. Nope, I don't enjoy this but I'm proud to say after cring for a day in despair I took the bull by the Ron's. Next is a no trespass order on the kid for when he gets out of jail and I have a ounce barrel shot gun with police load and know how to use it. Should I invite the child in for a cupof tea and then blow is ass off? Dead if course so he can't turn around and sue me for damages. Damn I don't like being called old and set in my ways. Stupid fools. Yes...I'm steaming mad still but I got my saddle back! No kidding. The kids in jail and doesn't get his impounded car out so the tow company gets to sell it to pay for their troubles but t had this really nice saddle in the back! OOnth man! These guys really have been piling up the bad karma I guess.mso it's custom made with a maker and the tow guy calls the maker and my maker calls me so I call the tow guy and he's all insulted at my $150.00 reward for this expensive saddle and just gives it to me or maybe he felt bad taking money when. Drove up in a beat up 25 year old car with white hair and haggard face. What ever. This has become almost entertaining at this point. It's all in how you look like at something. Hey thanks for the rant, what's a forum for. My friends don't need to hear my insanity. They think I'm normal and I'd like to keep it that. Way.

[squeezyjohn]

I like a good rant too...

But I find it easier to understand with a little punctuation! Paragraphs anyone?

Fay - you should have had the seeds by now! I'll send them again in case there's been some kind of postage cock up. If you get two packets it will be no big deal.

Sorry to hear about your goings on ... I think ... in fact I don't really understood what you just wrote!

[Faylool]

That's how we rant here in Sweet Home Oregon! You don't have to understand. Kind of like trying to figure out what someone has been eating after they throw up. Ugly business.
thanks. I do appreciate that second send. You sure you had my address right? I've never not received mail I was aware of coming. I'll no doubt end up with two. Check the addy
*****
ok. I'm calmed down now. Yes. My iPad jumps in and does weird things plus my straggling fingers sometimes tap the screen so weird things happen on top of two finger typing typOs and so I decided who cares, barely anyone reads these things anyway.
i apologize for the throw up remark, I am sometimes gross. And I don't want you to have a bad impression of me because I am able to loose my cool sometimes. I'm actual an honors graduate in he field of Linguistics but I have an aversion to intellectual snobbery and don't like to fit in very much just in case someone wants to accuse me of being superficial. I've had a very nutty 6 weeks!

[squeezyjohn]

lol - the throw up bit made absolute sense though!

[Faylool]

Thank you!

[OregonNative]

Good luck on the grow mate! I'll be checking in from time to time.

[tattooer601]

Squezzy
Looking good man.

Sorry ,that i got off topic man.

[squeezyjohn]

TOBACCO GROWING UPDATE - MAY

Well it's been getting hotter and hotter here. Most of the tobacco plants are going absolutely nuts in their little cardboard tubes in the greenhouse (it's still occasionally a little bit frosty at nights here). Here they are two months old:



You can see that most of them are starting to run out of space - those varieties are Black Stalk Mammoth, Yellow Twist Bud and Dark Virginia. The ones that are tiny still are Del Gold and Alida - I'm not sure they're going to get any further.

I have just given them a haircut - a method of snipping two-thirds of the lower leaves off to allow better air circulation and light - and it also starts to toughen them up for being transplanted out making the stems thicker and promoting more growth of the top leaves. They now look like this!



The plan for these bad boys is to get them out in the open ground when I come back off tour at the end of May after checking if there is a forecast for any late frosts.

The 48 Rustica plants I started two weeks after now look like this!



To be honest these could probably go in the ground now - but I'll probably wait until the same time as the others just to give them a chance of beating the frost.

Hopefully by the winter there should be some snus made from these plants, but in the meantime I'll keep you up to date with their progress.

Cheers

Squeezy

[Faylool]

I read the two months thing and thought oh man! Forever then saw Rustica two week. That means it wont be long now! Glad youre doing this thread. I waited a little longer to be absolutely no freeze here now. Im not doing very many this first time so if i fail i can try better next time

[squeezyjohn]

Sorry - I should have been clearer! The rustica was started from seeds 2 weeks after the normal tobacco varieties - which means they've been going for about 6 weeks now.

Cheers

Squeezy

[Faylool]

Ok. Got it. Glad you posted

[squeezyjohn]

All planted out today! 32 regular tobacco plants of different varieties and 20 or so Rustica plants made it this far.






I had a bit of a disaster with the Rustica - to be honest - I've probably got time to start some more - but I just let them go too long in the little modules they were in and they got too top heavy and they probably wanted to be in the ground 4 weeks ago!

The bigger regular varieties are looking great though.

It's just gardening from here until curing though - keep them watered until the roots are established in the ground and then they are very low maintainance.

x

Squeezy

[Skell18]

Looking good mate, just in time for all he rain tomorrow too, so you won't have to do too much watering.

[squeezyjohn]

Haha

That was my thinking .... Bank Holiday Monday = rain