SkyHog
Touchdown! Greaser!
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2005
- Messages
- 18,431
- Location
- Castle Rock, CO
- Display Name
Display name:
Everything Offends Me
**NOTE: This post has nothing to do with my employer, and should not be linked in any way to my employer, our competitors, or anything else having to do with the tobacco industry. Please do me a favor and don't even mention my employer in this thread or I will probably have to stop responding and updating it.***
I just realized that I hadn't really posted any information about this here.....I know, its taboo, but realize that I am doing this for fun more than anything else, and probably will never even consume the product when its ready, but...
I'm growing tobacco. Its a lot of fun, its like gardening, but with giant plants. And its fairly unique because not many people in the United States have ever really seen how the process works.
So - here's the preface: I am growing two rows of tobacco, one is Golden Burley, and the other is One Sucker Burley. I am doing this organically, with no pesticides or even natural barriers to bug consumption - mostly because I'm lazy, but also because I don't want to spray pesticides on my property.
A few weeks ago, I primed my first harvest. Its amazing how much of the leaf was eaten by bugs and tobacco hookworms, but there's still a lot of leaf left, so it is time to cure it.
Curing tobacco can be done a number of ways, but I chose the easiest way: Air Curing. Basically, you hang the tobacco leaves up toward the top of a non-exposed room and wait for it to wilt and turn golden brown.
I now have a yield of burley from my first priming, and its completely cured. If you have never smelled leaf tobacco, I can describe it this way: Its so fragrant, and its very pleasant...like a sweet batch of raisins.
Anyway...that was rambling, but I'm just trying to describe everything involved....here's some pictures:
1. 4/02/2011: Using one of the greenhouses from WalMart, the seeds have germinated (this is about 1 month after planting)
2. 4/28/2011: After about 8 weeks, the plants are really starting to grow
3. 4/29.2011: About 2.5 months after planting, it was time to transplant into the ground
4. 6/4/2011: About 4 months after planting, they took off fast.
5. 7/9/2011: The first plant has flowered. This signifies time to top the plants to kill off any flowering and bolster the nutrients to the leaves
6. 7/10/2011: Because of excessive insect activity and my failure to properly remove all of the suckers, the plants have stunted, and I do my first harvest about a month earlier than I should have to salvage some leaf.
7. 7/10/2011: The harvest with the remaining plants in the background. You can see that some of the plants are way too small for a harvest....
8. 7/10/2011: Washing the leaves, one by one was an arduous task in the hot and humid North Carolina heat. This necessary task prefaces the beginnings of the curing process. This is a healthy example of a leaf.
9. 7/10/2011: Still washing the leaves, this was one of the stunted leaves. You can see how small it is in comparison to the previous, healthy leaf.
I just realized that I hadn't really posted any information about this here.....I know, its taboo, but realize that I am doing this for fun more than anything else, and probably will never even consume the product when its ready, but...
I'm growing tobacco. Its a lot of fun, its like gardening, but with giant plants. And its fairly unique because not many people in the United States have ever really seen how the process works.
So - here's the preface: I am growing two rows of tobacco, one is Golden Burley, and the other is One Sucker Burley. I am doing this organically, with no pesticides or even natural barriers to bug consumption - mostly because I'm lazy, but also because I don't want to spray pesticides on my property.
A few weeks ago, I primed my first harvest. Its amazing how much of the leaf was eaten by bugs and tobacco hookworms, but there's still a lot of leaf left, so it is time to cure it.
Curing tobacco can be done a number of ways, but I chose the easiest way: Air Curing. Basically, you hang the tobacco leaves up toward the top of a non-exposed room and wait for it to wilt and turn golden brown.
I now have a yield of burley from my first priming, and its completely cured. If you have never smelled leaf tobacco, I can describe it this way: Its so fragrant, and its very pleasant...like a sweet batch of raisins.
Anyway...that was rambling, but I'm just trying to describe everything involved....here's some pictures:
1. 4/02/2011: Using one of the greenhouses from WalMart, the seeds have germinated (this is about 1 month after planting)
2. 4/28/2011: After about 8 weeks, the plants are really starting to grow
3. 4/29.2011: About 2.5 months after planting, it was time to transplant into the ground
4. 6/4/2011: About 4 months after planting, they took off fast.
5. 7/9/2011: The first plant has flowered. This signifies time to top the plants to kill off any flowering and bolster the nutrients to the leaves
6. 7/10/2011: Because of excessive insect activity and my failure to properly remove all of the suckers, the plants have stunted, and I do my first harvest about a month earlier than I should have to salvage some leaf.
7. 7/10/2011: The harvest with the remaining plants in the background. You can see that some of the plants are way too small for a harvest....
8. 7/10/2011: Washing the leaves, one by one was an arduous task in the hot and humid North Carolina heat. This necessary task prefaces the beginnings of the curing process. This is a healthy example of a leaf.
9. 7/10/2011: Still washing the leaves, this was one of the stunted leaves. You can see how small it is in comparison to the previous, healthy leaf.
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