Deluxestogie Grow Log 2019

[deluxestogie]

Plans for my 2019 Garden

I find that it is once again time to begin carving garden plans in stone.

That's 6 varieties (only one of which is new, and one is an oldie), for a total of about 130 plants. ["Fallow" means that the grower needs less work and more rest.]

The Trabzon is absolutely, definitely the final and last new Oriental that I will ever trial-plant. (I've grown twenty-two different Oriental varieties, and this has naturally got to stop! Trabzon will be #23.) Of all those that I've grown, I have been delighted with (in no particular order):

• Xanthi-Yaka
• Izmir Osbas
• Samsun
• Samsun-Maden
• Bafra
• Prilep 66-9/7
• Düzce
• Prancak N-1 (actually an Indonesian Prancak cross with Izmir)
• Smyrna #9

So, as you can see, even the short list of favorite Orientals leaves too many to grow any of them very frequently. My sole use for Orientals is pipe blending. [My pipes are generally fallow during the warmer months.] I've been happiest with stalk-cutting and sun-curing on the stalk, followed by kilning.

My cigar picks are distilling to Corojo 99, Olor, Piloto Cubano, Vuelta Abajo. My use of Long Red, PA Red, Dutch Ohio and Little Dutch is so much slower than for the Caribbean types, that they fade to only alternate years. Likewise, my consumption of flue-cured warrants a small grow in alternate years.

Little Yellow, on track for 2019, is a beautiful, thick-leafed, sticky, though light-colored heirloom Dark-Air variety. I haven't grown it for 6 or 7 years.

Bob

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I think you should try L'Assomption 201, because I won't have a garden this year, and the seeds I got from ARS-GRIN should probably be grown.

Edit: naah. Maybe not. I think I can grow it at my friends place. It'll be good for me.

 

[Charly]

I admire your self-control Bob !
Only 6 varieties ! I hope one day I will be able to reduce my grow list like you.

There are so many strains I want to try... and my 2019's grow list is already too long !

I wish you good luck with your crop and I will follow your blog with pleasure.
(Best wishes for this new year)

 

[ciennepi]

Best wishes Bob I admire that after only a few hours of the new year you are planning your next grow.
Do you will try to germinate the two old seed of the past year that don't be much collaborative?

 

[deluxestogie]

ciennepi, I'm not planning to add anything to the list given above. Ha!

Charly, I actually finalized the garden plan for 2019 in early November. The graphic was waiting like a vulture perched on a dead branch, until 2019--then it descended to the forum.

Bob

 

[ciennepi]

It's a shame that the strain Rabo de Gallo Negro could not be resurrected to try their caracteristic.

 

[deluxestogie]

The Rabo de Gallo Negro seed is toast.

Bob

 

[ciennepi]

Amen.

 

[deluxestogie]

My plans for this summer include being out of town for the last week of June. This time period is typically about a week to 10 days after my first wave of hornworms, which would mean returning a week or so before the second wave. So my thought is to purchase BT (Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki), and spray my leaf on the evening before I depart. With a 40% probability of rain on any given day of June here, that gives me coverage--maybe--for the first half of the time I'm gone. If it rains immediately, then I'll have to take my chances with being in between waves of hornworms. Unmolested hornworms, given 10 days of party time on my plants would be a sight to see.

Summertime for tobacco is not all that different a burden from having dairy cows. You just can't leave without making arrangements.

But it's all about priorities. I'm planning a long road trip to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon with my oldest brother and my 11 year old grandson--two codgers and a kid. I'm afraid I'm no longer backpacking capable, though my brother and grandson are. I'll just go along for the long ride, take lots of photos, and instruct my grandson on how to prepare our meals at the campsites, how to pitch the tent by himself, how to treat questionable water, and how to navigate the interstate highways with a road atlas, and of course, how to orient himself with a topographical map using a compass.

Bob

 

[ciennepi]

Bravo! It's one of the nicest way to live a holidays. I also make every year a mountain trek with my older brother and his son (now 14 years old). We sleep in a tent, bring our food and cook it on a bonfire. The thing that amaze me is that we, around fifty, are a lot more resistant that the young boy! Usually in the evening around fire we smoke homerolled cigars made by me and Toscano brought by my brother.

 

[Charly]

Boys ! I envy you ! That seems like some very good times to live !
My children are still a bit too young to make such a trip, but in a few years from now... maybe !

Have fun ! And don't worry too much about your tobacco plants

 

[CobGuy]

I'm planning a long road trip to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon ...

That'll put you in my stomping grounds ... especially if you come in from the south on I-40.
My porch is always open to traveling forum members and the coffee is usually on!

~Darin

 

[deluxestogie]

Thanks for the invitation. I'm afraid we'll be on a tight schedule during the (gulp!) 2000+ miles of driving in each direction--and with only two drivers.

Back in the good old days (when I could still backpack), we would always spend the night in Flagstaff, to dine at Asian Gourmet restaurant (now extinct) and pick up last minute gear the following morning, while awaiting stray party members who usually flew into Phoenix, then drove up in a rental car.

Bob

 

[CobGuy]

Good times ... I lived in Flagstaff for about 16 years but it became too crowded and changed for us.
I still own a home there and rent it out but we've been considering selling lately.

~Darin

 

[deluxestogie]

Purchased the last season that the Bears won the Super Bowl.

It's never easy being a fan of a Chicago sports team.

Bob

 

[ericthered]

Purchased the last season that the Bears won the Super Bowl.

It's never easy being a fan of a Chicago sports team.

Bob

It might not have been easy, but 2016 was worth it! Go Cubbies!

 

[deluxestogie]

Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse

I took photos of several phases of partial eclipse, but they were all just a fuzzy blur. During the full eclipse, it was so dark (with all my house lights turned off), that I had trouble just getting down the porch steps. I set the camera timer to delay 10 seconds, and also to take 3 consecutive shots. With the camera attached to my hand-tripod, and that strapped to a trekking pole, I braced it against a car door, pressed the shutter button, held my breath for 10 seconds, then waited for each of the 3-second, consecutive exposures. I shivered my way back indoors, put away the camera, then went to bed.

This morning, when I finally examined those final shots, all three of them were reasonably well focused, and showed this beautiful, red moon.

Even more lovely was the full super moon resting just above the western horizon at dawn this morning, surrounded by a pinkish-blue sky. I was not yet dressed, and knew it would be gone by the time I could get dressed to go outside. It was 4°F.

Bob

 

[Charly]

Nice shot !
I woke up earlier this morning to see the moon, the sky was clear and I saw the moon with it's red color.
Well, from my window, I saw it, but it was more light pink than red, but it was nice nonetheless.

I which I had a telescope to see it bigger...

 

[deluxestogie]

The nice shots of the moon that are now in the news are often taken with a 500mm telephoto lens. I was using my trusty Canon Powershot 2200. When you magnify the moon through a lens, it also magnifies the motion of the moon, which means about 0.02 degrees of angle movement during a 5 second exposure. That doesn't sound like much, but the entire moon subtends only about 0.5°, when observed from earth. So during that 5 second exposure, the moon will shift in the exposure by 4% of its diameter (i.e. it blurs). A telephoto lens, like a telescope, requires a motorized, equatorial mount that moves along with the moon (or stars).

Bob

 

[skychaser]

Lucky strike? Moment meteorite slammed into Super Blood Wolf Moon caught on camera
https://www.rt.com/news/449517-meteorite-hit-moon-during-lunar-eclipse/