The Tobacco Plant Project

[Smoked!]

Those things took off! Nice photos.

I was thinking about the square foot concept. Crop intensive farming is common in regions with limited resources. Many of the seed varieties, or traits, are specifically designed for particular conditions. In this case, I think the type of plant we are growing needs a bit more room. The leaves may grow 24 - 30 inches long. Guestimating angle and leaf curvature, that puts the approximate spread for the stalk at better than three feet. I'm not no math wiz, but I think one square foot may be a little tight... More important, this is a leaf crop, as opposed to root or seed crops that seem to be better suited to intensive methods. Just my .02.

In any case, you're miles ahead of me in prepping the ground. I'm thinking of just plowing up the neighbors yard.

[mrtr33]

Those things took off! Nice photos.

I was thinking about the square foot concept. Crop intensive farming is common in regions with limited resources. Many of the seed varieties, or traits, are specifically designed for particular conditions. In this case, I think the type of plant we are growing needs a bit more room. The leaves may grow 24 - 30 inches long. Guestimating angle and leaf curvature, that puts the approximate spread for the stalk at better than three feet. I'm not no math wiz, but I think one square foot may be a little tight... More important, this is a leaf crop, as opposed to root or seed crops that seem to be better suited to intensive methods. Just my .02.

In any case, you're miles ahead of me in prepping the ground. I'm thinking of just plowing up the neighbors yard.

Yeah, I agree. But I also think that the plants will only grow up to the space their provided, and I can't justify taking up so much of my garden simply for the pleasure of monstrous tobacco plants. Maybe next year. I think I'm already doing better than I did last year. It's all a learning process.

[ashauler]

Fantastic photo's guys......I may have to post some of my own here as soon as I have the additional time to wait for the thread to open.

All of my plants have been transferred to 5" peat pots. They are straining their environment and need to be either moved to the ground or into large pots. I think I'll split them up at that point...some in pots for small decorative plants and others into the ground to reach their full potential. I may move a few this weekend. Nothing special as far as ground preparation for me, just straight into their appropriate spots in the flower beds.....most likely will fertilize with some good old Miracle-gro.

[mrtr33]

So, I finally got around to putting the larger plants in the ground. Photos are included.

As mentioned before, I have chosen to go with 2 - 4X4 boxes. This is probably not enough room for them to grow commercially, but for my experimental purposes, this should do fine. The larger plants were definitely outgrowing their smaller pots, and I found some free time over the holiday weekend to pull this off. The rest of the plants are still being kept as backups, in case one plant dies unexpectedly, a hard rain wipes one out, or we get another freeze.

I built the boxes a few weeks ago. I had an unsightly compost pile from last year in the corner of the backyard, and used the compost from that as the base (that's why you see eggshells, avocado peels, etc. in some of the pictures). I then bought several bags of organic, commercial compost from my local small nursery, to make it look kind of nice on top.

Clockwise, from top left: Black Mammoth, Long Red Leaf, Argentina, Black Mammoth



Clockwise, from top left: Black Mammoth, Florida Sumatra, Black Mammoth, Black Mammoth



The two best plants so far:

Long Red Leaf



Argentina



It will probably take at least a week of these plants settling into their new environment before I see any growth again. The summers are pretty brutal here, so even when growing directions on a plant says to give it "full sun", that actually translates here to "no more than 4 hours of direct sunlight". They are in a partly shaded area of our backyard. I haven't added any fertilizers, and am not sure if I will or not. They've been doing pretty well without any fertilizer, and the compost I planted them in is rather rich. We'll see. I can always add more later.

The other plants that weren't put in the ground will probably grow a little bit more, but unless they get transferred to a different pot, will probably max out their growth soon. One plant in particular was heavily infested with aphids up until Sunday evening. Last night it was looking better, and hopefully a few more spray treatments will knock those out for sure. By the way, the tobacco water didn't work as well as anticipated, but rather a soapy-water concoction seems to work better.

[ashauler]

I just planted the hardiest of my specimens yesterday in some unused space of my fathers garden. They are very spindly compared to the others posted here. It has been an unusually wet and stormy spring, interspersed with overly hot, summer like conditions. It has been difficult to get these bad boys outside and transplanted into larger pots to allow for growth. I'm hoping that they will take off now that they are in the ground. Wouldn't you know we had sever thunderstorms, high winds and heavy rains last night.......they may be destroyed already. I'm avoiding calling out and having Pops take a look.

Here are some photo's.....sad as they are:
http://www.cigarsmokers.com/album.php?albumid=62

[mrtr33]

I wish I had that much space, man. I'm envious. Looking good. How many of each plant did you end up with?

[ashauler]

I wish I had that much space, man. I'm envious. Looking good. How many of each plant did you end up with?

Currently in the garden I have:
4 x Florida Sumatra
2 x Small Stock
2 x Long Red Leaf
1 x Argentina

Still in the peat pots, soon to be transferred to larger planters:
2 x Small Stock
2 x Long Red Leaf
1 x Argentina....though I doubt this little bastard makes it.