What a difference a week makes. No fertilizer still. I'd imagine this growth will slow the larger the plants get, and outgrow their tiny little pots.

Argentina - May 14:



Argentina - May 21:




Florida Sumatra / Long Red Leaf - May 14:



Florida Sumatra / Long Red Leaf - May 21:




The whole tobacco garden. It's amazed me how quickly these have grown. The weather has been very cooperative, with rain only 2 of the last 10 days or so. Even still, most days get at least a little bit of sun. Some of these plants are probably ready to be transferred, but there are some that are probably still a little small to be transferred; namely, the Florida Sumatra plant. My other concern right now is that the leaves are really starting to spread out, so the larger plants are shielding the light from the smaller plants. I really like the tray I have them in now, and would rather not upgrade to larger pots before transferring them into the ground.






The planter beds - only about half full. I'm emptied my compost bin from last year as the base of these beds. Also found about a gazillion worms. I'm filling the rest up with compost. I forget the name brand now, but it's something from a garden shop, and not one of the big box stores. It's at this time that I'll add fertilizer for the first time as well. Basically, I just put 2 - 2X4's on top of each other. Originally, I was worried that there would be too much space between the boards, for the compost to leak out of. As it turns out, this is not the case. At this point, I probably won't finish these beds until Sunday at the earliest. I'm going to be checking the weather to try to decide on the best time to transfer my plants to the ground. I'd rather not risk subjecting the new transfers to a torrential Louisiana rainstorm.
I subscribe to the Square Foot Gardening principle. So I built these 4X4 beds, and will section them each off into 4 - 1 square foot sections, one for each plant. The hope is that with using such rich compost, and with so much space, the plants should thrive. I've also chosen to use a time-release fertilizer, so I won't have to worry about that so much. The soil here in our neighborhood is very high in clay content, and not great for gardens. Hopefully, this gets around that.






Observation: the below plant is the Long Red Leaf. As you can see, the three larger leaves toward the top look strong. The bottom two, however, are yellowing and/or otherwise fading. I should probably pick these off, to support growth of the other leaves. I noticed this last year with my plants as well. the bottom leaves seemed to just yellow and die. I just picked them off.