Madfarmer's 2023 Grow

[MadFarmer]

My grandmother used to call them Jacob's Ladder Spiders. They are cool to watch.

I don't see nearly as many as I did growing up. They don't survive the wrens in my yard to get much bigger than this one.

 

[Knucklehead]

I don't see nearly as many as I did growing up. They don't survive the wrens in my yard to get much bigger than this one.

I don't see them much anymore either. They are pretty to be spiders.

 

[Frelono]

After i started growing tobacco and vegetables i have changed my view on spiders and such. I love seing spiders and ants on and around my plants. I feel like i almost should pay them for their hard work.

 

[MadFarmer]

After i started growing tobacco and vegetables i have changed my view on spiders and such. I love seing spiders and ants on and around my plants. I feel like i almost should pay them for their hard work.

I agree. Non gardeners cannot seem to fathom my appreciation for wasps of all kinds. Bad things happen when you remove an apex predator.

 

[deluxestogie]

Bad things happen when you remove an apex predator.

Especially when it's an assassin bug, and you use your bare fingers.

Bob

 

[MadFarmer]

77 days and the two tallest Piloto are flowering. And thanks to @Kuncklehead's link I know the they're suffering calcium deficiency.


Thankfully, it only seems to be affecting the top 1/3rd of the plants.

 

[Knucklehead]

View attachment 47138
77 days and the two tallest Piloto are flowering. And thanks to @Kuncklehead's link I know the they're suffering calcium deficiency.
View attachment 47137

Thankfully, it only seems to be affecting the top 1/3rd of the plants.

Here is another link. It indicates early topping can help correct calcium deficiency by inducing the roots to spread further into soil that may contain more calcium.

Calcium Deficiency

Over the past week or so we’ve received a number of phone calls, emails, and text messages asking about irregular/abnormal leaf growth and bud development. It’s safe to say that nearly all of these conversations have turned out to be Calcium (Ca) deficiency. Calcium deficiency is characterized...

tobacco.ces.ncsu.edu

edit: assuming that the soil is in the proper pH range.

 

[MadFarmer]

Here is another link. It indicates early topping can help correct calcium deficiency by inducing the roots to spread further into soil that may contain more calcium.

Calcium Deficiency

Over the past week or so we’ve received a number of phone calls, emails, and text messages asking about irregular/abnormal leaf growth and bud development. It’s safe to say that nearly all of these conversations have turned out to be Calcium (Ca) deficiency. Calcium deficiency is characterized...

tobacco.ces.ncsu.edu

edit: assuming that the soil is in the proper pH range.

The rest of the bed is showing phosphorus deficiency, in my experience an issue of pH being too high. I'll still top early just to see if it helps.

 

[MadFarmer]

Ornamentals are fun too. I took this a few days ago, it has almost a dozen blooms now. The blossoms are very hardy they really stand up to the Texas sun.

Jasmine:

 

[MadFarmer]

Photo from Sunday sounded like this.
@GreenDragon is probably homesick.

 

[MadFarmer]

Pot Glessenor 10th leaf.


Is there more to prime in the bed? Yes. Will I pick any more today? No. It's too hot.

 

[MadFarmer]

Today's original plan included watering the four very sad, lone survivor Piloto plants and harvesting them this evening. The RH was forecast to raise some this week after a month of spectacularly dry weather.


Then mother nature intervened with a brief, soaking thundershower late this afternoon. Everything outdoors is damp. I'm not complaining - but I'll put the harvest off for a few days. It's a brisk 80 degrees.

I did get to pot up a couple more Comstock/Vuelta plants that I'll be growing this fall. I only have one more to move, but it's in the largest nursery pot I have.

I also got to bag up the potted Glessenor that has finished color curing. I'll have to wait for slightly lower temps outside before I trust them to the Attic Kiln. When it hits 108 outside I don't want to know how hot it gets in the attic.

 

[MadFarmer]

In spite of my hot, dry garage this potted Glessenor color cured just fine. They're crumbly as all get out so I can't do a thorough inspection. The upper leaves are tucked away in the middle and from what I can peek they look nice and dark. Some unblemished mid-stalk leaves I box cured. They're already in their kiln bag.
(pictured above in previous post.)


All the colors of the tobacco rainbow, I'm not terribly concerned about the green I see. I believe it'll come out in the kiln.

 

[MadFarmer]

Wrapped some lugs in a leftover Corojo binder. It would have burned better if I had been patient. The lugs were probably field cured Glessenor, they tasted young, but not harsh, very much looking forward to the the remaining bag of them that I stuffed in the attic kiln this morning.

 

[MadFarmer]

This is cigar rolling weather.


The Glessenor and lugs came out of the attic kiln this morning. I'll have to make room in the garage for my potted winter experiment.
We have had six months of rain in about five days. If the forecast holds true we'll be out of th drought in my neck of the woods.

 

[MadFarmer]

My winter grow experiment continues.


95 days from planting and only the Vuelta Abajo shows budding, everything else is far behind. I chalk it up to 1) finding full sun in fall on my plot. 2) I could have fertilized more than I did - a tablespoon of bone meal in the potting mix was not sufficient after regular rain. 3) It's not warm.
I have vacillated on whether this is worth the extra effort, starting seeds in summer vs. just letting suckers do their thing. Ask me in July next summer when this batch comes out of the kiln, that's the best time to decide.

Here's my last Piloto Cubano suckering for all it's worth. No sign of leaf cupping.

 

[MadFarmer]

This will be my last post in this thread. I discovered another limit to growing during the winter here in Texas, and to my surprise it isn't frosts. We had multiple early mornings dip below freezing between Oct 31st and the second week of January. Picking the Comstock and Glessenor I found little to no damage to the leaves, Veulta though showed heavy damage. It was somewhere between sunscald as on wet leaves or wind burn. I didn't bother picking them.

The limit I may have hit though is color curing. I strung my leaves the same as I do in August and after the hard freeze in the middle of January some of them flash dried green. Pretty much all of the sucker Piloto, and the top leaf of Glessenor and Comstock all ended up crunchy and green.
I'd like to know how much ambient temperatures play a roll in color curing. I think Texas's dry Januarys are drier than our dry Augusts.

 

[Knucklehead]

This will be my last post in this thread. I discovered another limit to growing during the winter here in Texas, and to my surprise it isn't frosts. We had multiple early mornings dip below freezing between Oct 31st and the second week of January. Picking the Comstock and Glessenor I found little to no damage to the leaves, Veulta though showed heavy damage. It was somewhere between sunscald as on wet leaves or wind burn. I didn't bother picking them.

The limit I may have hit though is color curing. I strung my leaves the same as I do in August and after the hard freeze in the middle of January some of them flash dried green. Pretty much all of the sucker Piloto, and the top leaf of Glessenor and Comstock all ended up crunchy and green.
I'd like to know how much ambient temperatures play a roll in color curing. I think Texas's dry Januarys are drier than our dry Augusts.

It sounds like you need to monitor your humidity with a hygrometer. The ones with a remote so you can watch what is going on from inside the house are really nice. My humidity swings around night to day, day to day, and heavily effected by weather fronts. You may have to open or close doors, add moisture, move to a different location, bunch the leaves or spread them apart. I have to manipulate my environment and stay on it to make those changes before too much time as passed. The smaller your cure area, the easier it is to make adjustments.

 

[johnny108]

This will be my last post in this thread. I discovered another limit to growing during the winter here in Texas, and to my surprise it isn't frosts. We had multiple early mornings dip below freezing between Oct 31st and the second week of January. Picking the Comstock and Glessenor I found little to no damage to the leaves, Veulta though showed heavy damage. It was somewhere between sunscald as on wet leaves or wind burn. I didn't bother picking them.

The limit I may have hit though is color curing. I strung my leaves the same as I do in August and after the hard freeze in the middle of January some of them flash dried green. Pretty much all of the sucker Piloto, and the top leaf of Glessenor and Comstock all ended up crunchy and green.
I'd like to know how much ambient temperatures play a roll in color curing. I think Texas's dry Januarys are drier than our dry Augusts.

You will need to color cure anything you get above 15C/60F, or the chlorophyll won’t be able to break down.
Source: http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agcomm/pubs/agr/agr177/agr177.pdf