Madfarmer's tiny 2022 Grow

[MadFarmer]

This season will be a small one tobacco-wise. Only two varieties but we'll see how much space I can make for plants.

I also have to decide on a name for the seed that Balasaravanan sent from Sri Lanka.

 

[deluxestogie]

If the Sri Lanka leaf is Jaffna—
Jaffna from Seedman.com

then just name it Sri Lanka Jaffna.

Bob

 

[MadFarmer]

Pictures: one dozen healthy Vuelta Abajo starts.


The Sri Lanka Jaffna did not germinate so we'll, I managed one start that is a little behind.
To avoid mono cropping, and since this year's grow should be largely containerized, I started some Little Dutch seeds. They should be this size around the first of May.

 

[MadFarmer]

Speaking of containers, if I were to use grow bags: would I notice a substantial difference between growing in a 10gal bag vs a 5gal bag? I have a week or so before anything goes outside, and I'll still use terracotta pots as well, just interested in hearing from other container growers.

 

[MadFarmer]

My humble beginnings this season. For the record, I potted these up last weekend, 2April22. I'm experimenting with my side yard as microclimate. They will get reflected sunlight all morning from the neighbor's house until noonish. After that they'll get full sun well into the evening, plus reflected heat from my house. The hose bib is visible on the left.


I'll add a few more plants when the cloth grow bags arrive.

 

[MadFarmer]

The last four plants and a tomato. I am not completely sure about the side yard micro climate: 1) I cannot see it from inside the house, 2) I am not sure exactly where the sun is when visevie house shade, crepe myrtle shade. 3) the property line and the direct sun may be too close for comfort.

 

[MadFarmer]

I found this browsing seed the other day:
https://www.victoryseeds.com/nicotiana_tabacum_texas-cuban.html

Which lead me here:



https://archive.org/details/experimentsingro00mcne/page/n3/mode/1up?view=theater


An interesting (and only) tidbit about the provenance of the seed used in the experiment:

 

[deluxestogie]

Unfortunately for those performing the testing:

• seed from the Vuelta Abajo in 1905 consisted of a random mix of varieties
• nearly nobody in the US had recognized Mendelian genetics
• all tobacco in Cuba and the US was open pollinated, so the seed collected was always a random mixture of varietal traits

Bob

 

[MadFarmer]

Pre-Mendelian seems almost prehistoric, except they wrote stuff down and I read about it.

Applied BT for the first time today. Found two (2!) Hornworms on my tomato plants. One I relocated to the yaupon holly for the wasps to find, the second I found while spraying, he was drenched. Don't they know it isn't even May?
I sprayed all the tobacco as well. I'm daring the other hornworms to try it.

 

[MadFarmer]

The side yard experiment appears to be going well, if you just look at the one pot.

According to the moisture meter everything has stayed watered enough, but I am wondering if it's not enough water to promote growth. The bagged plants have stayed small, even though they were transplanted 28 days ago. I unwittingly underfilled the bags, didn't have enough to begin with, and didn't account for how quickly the compost and other organic amendments would break down. Would shallow planting also slow growth down?


I'll update on the little dutch I started. They were happy and healthy starts on Sunday morning. Then I left them in the shade of a few tomato plants last Sunday, at the start of an early, droughty, heatwave. Most of them survived but it was ugly.

 

[deluxestogie]

If the walls of the grow bags (unlike the plastic pot) transpire water vapor, then you probably need to water them more frequently.

Bob

 

[Knucklehead]

The side yard experiment appears to be going well, if you just look at the one pot.
View attachment 41714
According to the moisture meter everything has stayed watered enough, but I am wondering if it's not enough water to promote growth. The bagged plants have stayed small, even though they were transplanted 28 days ago. I unwittingly underfilled the bags, didn't have enough to begin with, and didn't account for how quickly the compost and other organic amendments would break down. Would shallow planting also slow growth down?
View attachment 41715

I'll update on the little dutch I started. They were happy and healthy starts on Sunday morning. Then I left them in the shade of a few tomato plants last Sunday, at the start of an early, droughty, heatwave. Most of them survived but it was ugly.

My Prilep wilt down during the heat of the day, then lift up into the prayer position in the evening. I can lift or tip up one of the grow bags and tell how light or heavy it is. When it's like lifting air they need some water. The three smaller plants were my backups that I eventually potted. They use less water than the larger ones. They can go another day before they feel really light weight.

Just past mid-day today. (Actually around 4 pm eastern) Watered yesterday morning. I'll give the bigger ones a drink this evening.



This morning. The big ones will get water this evening.

 

[MadFarmer]

This season, woof:

This morning
Re-potted the grow bags two weeks ago, and still not showing much growth.

May 22nd
The best looking specimen flowered two weeks early.

 

[MadFarmer]

I'm thinking my container problem is the grow medium blend. It's new and I noticed it compressed considerably over time. All my previous containers were filled with old mix that had settled, but still had plenty of pore space.

 

[deluxestogie]

My experience has been that repotting itself pauses growth each time you re-pot. So I usually expect a repotted plant to do nothing for at least a week, and maybe two. It might be the soil issue you've identified, but I would wait another week or two, before making another change.

Bob

EDIT: The danger of a very small grow is that it's like raising an only child. You tend to be more stressed over issues that might be of little concern among all the plant variability of a larger grow.

 

[MadFarmer]

Taking a page from @Knucklehead 's book:

 

[MadFarmer]

This growing season appears to be a bust, I am down to two plants who seem to be in a kind of stasis. My cloth bags do not breathe enough to allow for growth but they do retain water. As soon as we get word of the slightest cool down I'll move them to the raised beds until December.

My summer kilning experiment however, has yielded interesting results. My resting, already kilned, "summer" Bahia smells like parched hot earth. The "winter" Bahia that has been in the attic since mid-April has none of this. It smells sweetly floral giving way to new leather. I was very tempted to roll a small one up right out of the cooler.

 

[MadFarmer]

87 degrees and 98% humidity is an improvement over last Saturday's 102 and 15%.
I am on the back patio seeding the volunteer arugula that I pulled to make room for sad tobacco:


Hopefully my alchemy will work turning summer tobacco to winter tobacco.

Sad tobacco hanging in the garage:

 

[MadFarmer]

I had little to no hope for these two when I transplanted them 50 days ago.
Look at them now!

"Winter" Veulta Abajo.

 

[deluxestogie]

How soon do you have to harvest them?

Bob