From Bud to Harvest

[mrtr33]

Florida Sumatra.....0 harvested....36 leaves trashed. These plants suffered from calcium defficiency to a higher degree than the others. This defficiency causes the leaves to "hood"....curl over from the edges to the middle, causing the leaves to rot during curing and fail to lay flat....ruins them as a wrapper, and again, too much risk of rot for me to try to cure these out. Total harvest of FS was 30 leaves from 4 plants.

Calcium deficiency, huh? I'll make a note on that for next year. I know several of the leaves I harvested had "hooded". While I hope I'm able to spot them during this curing phase, the chances of me getting past the curing phase at this point in life is unrealistic.

The root systems:

...look much MUCH stronger than mine did. You've got some great soil there.

I have enjoyed it immensely and look forward to the curing and fermenting processes, and eventually smoking a few cigars made from these tobaccos.

Thanks for participating. I think we're all interested to hear how the next processes go. Keep us posted as you have time. Hopefully, you'll even want to do it again next year! This could be a regularly recurring even on the board. I know I've already started a small compost pile for next year's garden, and will probably be putting in new soil as well (with extra attention to the calcium fortification, of course!).

Let me know if you want some of my leaves, to further your potential cigar-making empire. We'll figure out something.