Deluxestogie Grow Log 2021

[Oldfella]

Hi Bob, I can only see one Trabzon sprout, hopefully you'll have some more pop up soon.
Looks like a good setup though. I have mine similar but on tiered shop display rack and in front of my ranch slider door.
Oldfella

 

[deluxestogie]

Every cell in a 4-pack labeled with a stick contains a seedling. They are all tiny babies.

Bob

 

[Oldfella]

Oh yeah, I just needed a higher magnification.
Oldblindfella

 

[deluxestogie]

Bob

EDIT: 1 month ago:

 

[Brown Thumb]

Hell I’m blind and them babies are pretty big

 

[deluxestogie]

They have about 3 weeks to go.

Bob

 

[Oldfella]

They have about 3 weeks to go.

Bob

Very nice plants

 

[deluxestogie]

10-day forecast:

My weather has been windy for the past two weeks. I was up at 6 am this morning, to catch a zero wind speed. I used that opportunity to spray the tobacco beds with glyphosate. That will give me at least two weeks prior to transplant date.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

10-day forecast:


May! It's soon going to be May!

Bob

 

[Knucklehead]

10-day forecast:
View attachment 36040

May! It's soon going to be May!

Bob

May Day! May Day!
April showers bring May flowers. I sure hope so, I planted 20lb. of wild flowers down my driveway. 10lbs. last fall, 10lbs. this spring. I’m hoping for blossoms soon. Will those count toward post your garden pics?

 

[deluxestogie]

Last night, before retiring, I checked the latest weather forecast for clouds overnight. A SpaceX rocket was due to launch at 5:49 am EST, and possibly be visible here, in southwest Virginia, five minutes after liftoff. The forecast suggested that clouds would likely obscure my view to the southeast horizon.

I didn't bother to set an alarm. Like magic, I awakened at 5:40 am this morning. I quickly scurried out to the kitchen to glance at the sky. Stars! I rushed back to my bedroom, threw on some jeans and boots, put on a sock hat and a jacket (it was 31°F), and walked out to the end of my driveway in the darkness. I stood. I waited. Five minutes had passed with nothing to see. I headed back up my driveway toward the house.

Then it appeared. A huge, blurry, bright light ascended gradually, while traversing northward. Remaining about 25° above the horizon, it slowly faded from view after about 3 minutes. What I had seen was the rocket's vapor trail (and its engine blast) illuminated by a sun that had yet to rise above my horizon. An asteroid in reverse.

With two extra hours in my morning, I occupied myself with clipping my tobacco seedlings for the second time.

They will go in the ground in about two weeks.

A curious complication of maintaining several "large" tobacco plants from my 2020 garden (moved to pots) inside my enclosed back porch for the winter is that I also apparently maintained some aphids. One of my three trays of seedlings had aphids this morning. I misted it with permethrin, and hit the tray next to it as well. Since imidacloprid will go into the transplant water when they go outside, any surviving aphids will meet their reckoning soon thereafter.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

I still have some tobacco hanging in the shed from 2020. I wait for times when the humidity (light green line below) has stayed high.

Notice how rapidly the humidity falls as the temp begins to climb. So this window is between dawn and about 10 am. If I go out there, and the leaf doesn't feel workable, then I await the next period of humid weather.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

This is the single blossom on my over-wintered, indoor, potted Liquiça, started in 2020.

Bob

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

This is the single blossom on my over-wintered, indoor, potted Liquiça, started in 2020.

Bob

That's crazy.

 

[deluxestogie]

When can we go out and play?

From their perch on the wire shelves of my enclosed back porch, my tobacco babies got to watch a hail storm today. They have been clipped 3 times already. Will they get a fourth on the fourth? Maybe tomorrow.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

"If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed."
[Admiral William H. McRaven]

"If you want to grow your tobacco, start off by making your beds."
[Administrator Deluxe Stogie]

Mattock in hand, I trudged out to the garden yesterday and today (under threat of rain that would turn the ground into untillable gumbo) and completed all the tilling. To keep my lumbar vertebrae together in the same zip code, I wear a wide, lumbar brace to do this. I drag a lawn chair over to each bed, one by one, and sit as often as I need to. (Unfortunately, my team of oxen has been working remotely for the past year.) As a mark of my dedication to the craft of home tobacco growing, I even broke a fingernail, yet continued to work.

Next step is measuring out and sprinkling my 10: 10: 10: low chlorine fertilizer on each of the beds. Then the veggies go in. All of my tobacco starts look just about ready for prime time, so they will be transplanted over the next week.

Bob

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

sprinkling my 10: 10: 10: low chlorine fertilizer on each of the beds.

You just leave it on top?

 

[deluxestogie]

At the time I transplant or seed, the coarse surface is broken up a bit with a hand tool, and lightly tilled. So the little rocks of fertilizer are dispersed beneath the surface.

Bob

 

[Oldfella]

"If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed."
[Admiral William H. McRaven]

"If you want to grow your tobacco, start off by making your beds."
[Administrator Deluxe Stogie]

Mattock in hand, I trudged out to the garden yesterday and today (under threat of rain that would turn the ground into untillable gumbo) and completed all the tilling. To keep my lumbar vertebrae together in the same zip code, I wear a wide, lumbar brace to do this. I drag a lawn chair over to each bed, one by one, and sit as often as I need to. (Unfortunately, my team of oxen has been working remotely for the past year.) As a mark of my dedication to the craft of home tobacco growing, I even broke a fingernail, yet continued to work.

Next step is measuring out and sprinkling my 10: 10: 10: low chlorine fertilizer on each of the beds. Then the veggies go in. All of my tobacco starts look just about ready for prime time, so they will be transplanted over the next week.

Bob

What a manImagine carrying o with a broken nail!! Well done Bob hope all goes well with your grow
Cheers Oldfella

 

[deluxestogie]

What a man

What I didn't mention was that I actually sat in my lawn chair while tilling some of the beds with my mattock. Today, I've finished putting in all the vegetable seeds (fava beans, purple string beans, Italian green beans, baby carrots, okra, delicata squash, North Georgia Candy Roaster squash, bok choi and corn) as well as my 4 Basque Pepper transplants. Hopefully, I'll get the tomatoes and Chinese eggplant transplants in the dirt after dinner tonight. If all of these are successful, then they may supply most of the calories that I've expended planting them.

Bob