hemlock's 2025 grow blog

[Hemlock]

Hi all

This year will grow Virginia Gold, Shirey (Dark VA), Harrow Velvet Burley, Little Yellow and some Basma. Nothing serious like acreage or a field.... just planting in the backyard with the existing garden beds to see how it turns out. I've enjoyed whole leaf tobacco so this is a natural progression. Grew some rustica years back with disappointing results due to inexperience and harvest timing and curing.

Here's the seedling farm started in March just sitting in the window sill. I have an HID lamp but decided to just go natural light for now.

I've got so many seedlings I think I will plant some in the local forest and give them away to find new homes.

 

[Hemlock]

Late May the Virginia Golds are planted along fence. I've pulled some yellowing sand leaves and curing them for early taste testing. Hopefully these plants take off and get taller for good yields. Now experimenting with yellow curing methods including using a crock pot in my seldom used kegerator. The Shirley are planted against the other fence a week later.

 

[ShiniKoroshi]

Your plants look great!

 

[Hemlock]

Thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing them through a healthy season but Mother Nature deals the cards. It's been a cool and rainy month so I think growth has slowed in the last few weeks since transplant. I would like to see a growth spurt to get them 2 or 3 feet high.

 

[ShiniKoroshi]

It will be warm again before you know it.

 

[Hemlock]

Sand leaves in first curing stage. This is just a pilot experiment with 20 leaves.

I put a crock pot with temp controller and a small fan in the chest freezer. Bamboo rods and some cut wire hangars.
Temp is set to 100f. Humidity is naturally hitting 87% with crock pot slightly ajar.

I anticipate using the priming method through the season for the Virginia Gold. Will test the system to see if it will reach the 120 F zone for wilting. My goal is to make the sweetest possible Virginia leaf.

For sure have to move to oven to get to stem drying at 160F in a few days.

 

[Hemlock]

3 days in the kegerator kiln and leaves have become a perfect gold. Slow cooker and small fan easily getting to 130C now for wilting and drying. Cracked the freezer lid and now at around 40% RH. I don't think I'll need to go higher in temp as the stems are drying just fine. Don't want to damage the freezer compartment. Lamina is already crunchy on the leaves. One more day or so, and will stop the process if stems dry, bring into low case and prepare for storage and aging.

Happy with the results of this set-up and looks like I can be using priming method for the Virginia Gold leaf to kiln throughout the season since leaves seem to be continually maturing and ripening from the bottom up. I don't think the yellowing is being caused by any watering or nutrient deficiency. Might be the nature of the varietal?

 

[johnny108]

3 days in the kegerator kiln and leaves have become a perfect gold. Slow cooker and small fan easily getting to 130C now for wilting and drying. Cracked the freezer lid and now at around 40% RH. I don't think I'll need to go higher in temp as the stems are drying just fine. Don't want to damage the freezer compartment. Lamina is already crunchy on the leaves. One more day or so, and will stop the process if stems dry, bring into low case and prepare for storage and aging.

Happy with the results of this set-up and looks like I can be using priming method for the Virginia Gold leaf to kiln throughout the season since leaves seem to be continually maturing and ripening from the bottom up. I don't think the yellowing is being caused by any watering or nutrient deficiency. Might be the nature of the varietal?

View attachment 56032

It could be a varietal attribute. Mine are doing the same. (Left side row. Dark green is Jaffna, small plants on the right are Hyang Cho)

 

[Hemlock]

Great looking patch!

 

[Hemlock]

A fine specimen of Virginia Gold

 

[Hemlock]

6 days after last photo the Virginia Gold seems to be growing fast. Watching day by day doesn't seem like it.

Watering occasionally in addition to rain and adding some Miracle-gro.

 

[Hemlock]

Kegerator kilned sand leaves. Aroma is full on Virginia, with a subtle squash, carrot nuance. Asked my son what the aroma was and the answer was "smells sweet".

Will let this age for a while. It holds promise to be as good as what's possible with Virginia leaf.

These are thin leaves and considered first priming. Only about an ounce from 14 leaves.

As the plants are growing, the next levels of leaves are clearly thicker and larger so will surely yield much more mass per leaf.

 

[Hemlock]

Hi all,
Here's an update of my first backyard agricultural experiment.


Virginia Gold is as tall as it will get. I pinched off buds starting to form. Was hoping to get 6-7 ft plants. Maybe pinched off too early? These plants were germinated in February but not planted outdoors until May. I am sure if I put them out in April they would have been much taller with more leaves. However I'm very pleased with the size of the leaves and hope the yield will be good.



Disappointed in the size of the Shirey below. They are all starting to bud yet plants are so small, barely a dozen leaves each. These were sprouted in April and planted in May. Next year will advance everything by a month and really get them in the ground just after frost.



Daylight hours are long, so not sure why all the plants are early budding.

Was hoping to have 5-6 ft plants and big yields. I topped only one and will leave the others to get to early flowering and see if they gain another set or two of leaves.

Most disappointing is the Harrow Velvet which I thought was supposed to have tight leaf spacing and bigger leaves. Super early budding so snapped them off. Hopefully the leaves gain some bulk post-topping.

 

[deluxestogie]

Maybe pinched off too early?

If you wait until the actual blossoms begin to form, the overall height of the plant will be significantly greater. But most of the increase in height is due to elongation of the existing stalk segments. Topping earlier leads to somewhat shorter plants with larger leaves (along with earlier and more extensive sucker growth). A benefit of later topping is the opportunity to produce corona leaf, which is smaller, but more intense than ligero.

In the photo of the Shirey, surrounding grass appears to be growing right up to the tobacco stalks. Grass competes with the tobacco. I would aim for at least a 6 to 12 inch radius about the stalk be clear of any other plants (grass, weeds, etc.).

Bob

 

[Hemlock]

If you wait until the actual blossoms begin to form, the overall height of the plant will be significantly greater. But most of the increase in height is due to elongation of the existing stalk segments. Topping earlier leads to somewhat shorter plants with larger leaves (along with earlier and more extensive sucker growth). A benefit of later topping is the opportunity to produce corona leaf, which is smaller, but more intense than ligero.

In the photo of the Shirey, surrounding grass appears to be growing right up to the tobacco stalks. Grass competes with the tobacco. I would aim for at least a 6 to 12 inch radius about the stalk be clear of any other plants (grass, weeds, etc.).

Bob

Thanks for the advice Bob. Regardless of errors and expectations, I'm sure I'll get plenty of good smoking tobacco by seasons end. Learnings for next year.

 

[Knucklehead]

One of our members is a commercial tobacco farmer. He made a video of topping a field of burley.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKyJc9ywMFM

 

[Hemlock]

One of our members is a commercial tobacco farmer. He made a video of topping a field of burley.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKyJc9ywMFM

Thanks. I found this video interesting. Quite a bit is topped including a few leaves. I will compare the overall height and yield with the Shirey having topped only one plant out of six, early at small bud stage. I do have a couple other Virginia Gold, smaller; but not yet topped, to compare growth characteristics such as height and leaf mass. I have no way to compare others factors such as nicotine or flavor.

 

[Hemlock]

Primed and kegerator flue cured a dozen lower Virginia Gold leaves.

- 5 days at 100 F - 105F with crock pot heat/humidifier. 88% RH
- Stem dried at 160 in convection oven for 4 hrs
- Mass is only about an ounce, but it's just a few leaves from a stand of plants ... so not disappointing.
- moistened to medium case, flattened out and layered for continued curing in a poly bag. Will air dry them to low case in a few days for long term storage and aging in a sealed semi-vacuum bag
- Aroma is sweet root vegetables.

 

[Hemlock]

Virginia Gold inspectors

These plants have grown in size noticeably in one week after removing the buds and suckers. While not the trees I was hoping for they seem like happy plants.

 

[Hemlock]

Some other varieties in the grow

Little Yellow. Dark green, thick leaves.
Only two plants resulted from a full pack of seed. Very low germination rate.




A small stand of five Basma plants. Tightly spaced to encourage small leaf growth. Don't think I can sun cure in my climate but will see where they are at in a month or two. I intend to let them fully flower before stalk harvest.



A nice specimen of Shirey just before full blossom. Very thick, narrow and sticky leaves, although not a big plant.