Deluxestogie Grow Log 2021

[deluxestogie]

All veggies have been launched. Yay! Five years ago, this would have been a modest veggie garden for me. Now, it's a little overambitious. Including my tobacco beds, I am planting a total of 8 full-size (5' x 12') beds. During my 2014 grow, I had a total of 14 beds. That's kind of a frightening thought. On the back end, I've reduced my expectations for canning and pickling. The Country Gentleman corn that I've planted is an heirloom field corn that can be eaten fresh when young. If I don't feel like it, them I'm just growing corn cobs for pipes. So far as my local critters are concerned, my attitude now is more like that of a grandparent: "Sure. Eat all you want. I made it just for you."

For this actual grandparent, my 11 year old granddaughter is in the process of knitting me a hat.

Bob the old and tired.

 

[deluxestogie]

Today, I transplanted all of the tobacco. By the time I finished, it was getting dark, and my arms were too fatigued to hold a camera. Rain is scheduled for tomorrow all day.

In evaluating the available seedlings, I noted that the two Canadian varieties (L'Assomption 201 and NB 11) were well developed and begging to be represented in greater numbers than I had planned (originally 4 of each). So I reduced my MD 609 from 12 to 8, and increased the NB 11 from 4 to 8. I also increased the number of L'Assomption 201, at the expense of Olor, but can't recall my final number. What is certain is that I did not increase the total number of tobacco plants put in the garden beds. I'll have to count them.

Bob

 

[Charly]

Good job !
Now you can sit back, relax, watch everything grow and (of course) smoke a good cigar.

 

[deluxestogie]

My all-day light rain has finally stopped.

Bob

 

[MadFarmer]

I see the Corojo gets the coveted against the house bed. I'm assuming it's coveted, and that seedlings covet.

 

[deluxestogie]

Oh yes. Seedlings covet. Just think about the other half of the Corojo 99, that ended up out in the far reaches of the garden.

32 Corojo 99 plants will produce about 8 pounds or more of cured leaf. It is by far my most productive cigar variety. It is my favored variety for filler. I still have 16 stalks of it hanging in the shed, waiting to come into case for handling.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Two days after transplant, and every tobacco plant is still alive, looking droopy in mid-afternoon. There are deer tracks through two of the beds, all avoiding the tobacco, and none of it munched. Among the NB 11, the one suspiciously skeletal one in the bed photo (2nd row from the bottom of the image, to the right of the large wood marker) appears to be just fine, and was apparently caught by the camera with both of its healthy leaves edge-on. That's fortunate, since I started only 8, anticipating putting only 4 in the ground: no NB 11 backups left. All looks good.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Interesting weather here this afternoon. I received about ¼" of rain over a 1 hour period. The rain didn't "move in" from somewhere else. The rain clouds created themselves overhead. I live along the eastern continental divide. I watched an animated weather radar map as the rain started, then dissipated. The area of rain stretched in a 3 mile long comma shape that followed the divide south of Christiansburg. The wonderful sunshine through the morning and early afternoon apparently generated rising air primarily over this specific portion of the divide, generating the clouds (which undergo adiabatic cooling as they rise into lower atmospheric pressure), and condensing rain right over my head. As the rain ruined the ground surface heat required to lift the air, the clouds simply evaporated.

It's now lovely and damp, with birds chirping their delight at the ending of the rain. This sort of late afternoon rain storm is what happens often in the Rocky Mountains during the summer. (The same thing occurs over each of the Caribbean islands during their "rainy" season.) I've never before seen it occur so characteristically over my own house during my 23 years of living here.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

How to Make a Morning Cup of Coffee

Somehow I managed to sleep until nearly 9 am this morning. Sleeping late always leaves my back and joints particularly stiff when I finally arise. After stumbling into the kitchen, I set up my 16 ounce mug (sugar dumped in the bottom) with a filter cone and filter, added ground coffee, then poured in boiling water (only about half what it would require, since I needed to allow the filter to drip a bit to make room for the rest of the water). I reached up to the over-the-counter cabinet for something. Still being in a mental blur, my elbow bumped the mug-cum-filter-cone pagoda. Some hot water splashed onto my hand.

Now wide awake, I instantly ran cold water on my hand. Whew! That was close. On turning back to the counter, I noticed:

• The filter cone continued to drip--directly onto the counter
• The mug of concentrated sugar-coffee lay on its side on the counter
• Goose-shit patches of soaked coffee grounds radiated elegantly in a dispersed 120° arc originating on the counter, and spreading across the kitchen floor about 4 feet
• Everything on the counter was splashed with sticky coffee

After about 15 minutes (and half a roll of paper towels) of cleaning and rinsing and wiping, I set aside the filter cone, tore open two packets of Taster's Choice instant coffee (kept on hand for power outages), added them to some sugar in my now re-rinsed mug, along with newly boiled water. A bit of milk, and my morning waker-upper coffee was ready to go.

It tastes wonderful.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

We have a week of hot weather coming up, and no rain in the near forecast. Since my area is in a mild rain deficit for 2021, I went ahead and dragged my long hose out to the beds. It took me a lot of decades to figure out that I should also drag a lawn chair to each bed, and just sit while watering. That makes it more like watching the scenery in the evening.

At Christmas, my oldest brother gave me a Trail Camera. I've had it watching one spot in back of the house. It had no trouble detecting a deer, but a groundhog was too much of a challenge for it. Tonight, I re-purposed the Trail Cam. [I'm hoping I've set it up correctly, since the 100 page manual is nothing more than a feature fest in four languages. No real instructions.]

I now have begun a time-lapse set for 1 frame per 24 hour period. It's pointed at my Trabzon bed and the bed with L'Assomption 201, Little Dutch and Olor. It might make a nice animated gif.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Nearly everything that's been planted is still at the stage where you can't really see much. But it's all pretty happy today. The yellow arrow above locates the time-lapse plant growth action cam, seen in the image below.

And just for auld lang syne, here is last year's Timor-Leste Ainaro (a unique, dark sun-cured variety) that was moved indoors for the winter. It never produced blossoms, probably because of too much indoor light. I finally just topped it, and eventually moved it outdoors to my porch. Now there are 3 promising bud heads, each of which I will bag when they look sturdy enough to handle it.

Bob

 

[dvrmte]

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

Have you grown a Candy Roaster before? LOL I planted a few hills in a middle row of 8 rows of heirloom field corn that grows around 12 ft tall. It was more vigorous than anticipated. The vines began climbing the corn and had blooms and cute little squashes hanging from the corn. A few weeks later those cute little squashes were 3 ft long and my corn was being pulled down. Long story short, it destroyed half of my corn. The runners spread at least 15 ft each way. But heck, I had candy roasters and they do taste good, better than an acorn or butternut squash, in my opinion. The pigs love them too if you bust them up a bit. One side of my family is from North Georgia and I remember seeing similar squash stored in their house when I was a kid.
Anyway, good luck with them and your tobacco.

 

[deluxestogie]

This will be my 3rd year growing the North Georgia Candy Roaster. They are huge, delicious and easy to cook.

My most common way to prepare it.

Since it is stringless, it makes the most wonderful pie. My experience with them is that, once cured, they will last through the winter on the floor of the pantry. Their greatest downside is they are so damn heavy.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Coffee and tobacco--a perfect match. It has been 9 days since I transplanted tobacco into my garden. So far, all the transplants have survived well, and are beginning to thrive. This potted Corojo 99 was one of the leftovers. It will be kept beside my front porch steps, purely for decorative purposes.

Bob

 

[GIL]

You have beautiful plants. I wish you a good harvest!

 

[deluxestogie]

Thank you.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

This blossom opened over the last hour. I expect the pink margin of the corolla to intensify by tomorrow. Bagging it right now.

Bob

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Annual coffee can tobacco is some OG ironic hipster sh*#.

 

[Snowblithe]

Annual coffee can tobacco is some OG ironic hipster sh*#.

Are we at the point where OG hipsters are into Folgers? That's like irony-ception.

 

[deluxestogie]

OG ironic hipster

Sorry, my first language is English.

Bob