It’s a great day for America!

Today, I stepped the tobacco plants up from pods to peat pots. Check out the survivors:

Argentina –



Florida Sumatra –



Black Mammoth –



Long Red Leaf –





My first thought was to choose two or three of each variety and carefully cultivate only the finest of the seedlings. That would probably be the most efficient, well reasoned, and easily managed solution. It would require a minimum of supplies, only little effort, and an economic expense of time.

With that understanding, and while carefully considering my options, I cracked open a cold one, counted up the supplies available (see below)… and decided to make an afternoon of it. All these little guys went in new containers today. No doubt, there will be consequences. Don’t let your friends drink and farm.

As you can see, I picked up some potting soil with a slow-release fertilizer. Seems rather like cheating, doesn’t it? The off-brand was priced roughly forty percent less than the Miracle brand. Additionally, there was only one remaining sleeve of the large size peat pots and it was priced to move, so I loaded up my cart and cheap-skated my way to the register. Here are the goods:





Potting is simple, repetitive process. I find it to be relaxing. It must have been quite a bit warmer than I imagined. A full six pack of my favorite carbonated barley-based beverage evaporated. Chalk it up to angel’s share. Check out the roots pushing through the netting on the pod.




Most of the pods have a dominant seedling that will remain when the others wither or are plucked out. There are a couple considerations. For example, the Mammoth seeds hit very close to the target of eighty percent germination and most of the pods now have strong seedlings. Once they get through the transplant shock, I can remove the weakest ones. The other varieties are less vigorous.

In most cases there is a single viable seedling. However, there are a several doubles that may both survive if I can separate them. Siamese… I mean ‘conjoined’ tomacco twins? Yeah, kinda… sorta. Look:

From the top left, working clockwise we have: twins, twins, regular, regular, weakling, and an empty. What to do, what to do… that’ll be tomorrow’s post.