From Bud to Harvest

[ashauler]

this morning. I had several leaves of the Long Red Leaf that were starting to color up so I decided to go ahead and harvest the first priming from the two plants from the original planting of 12 June, 7 weeks ago.





I picked this sand leaf off one of the plants a week ago and hung it similar to those above. Making good progress on curing it out in just that week. There is still a significant tinge of green on the edges of the leaf, and the main stem is still very moist and pliable, it will be a couple of more weeks before it reaches the proper stage for fermenting. This was just an experiment to see the effects of hanging them on the fence. Looks like it would work, but I most likely will hang the bulk of the leaves in the garage to dry.

[ashauler]

Here are the standard photo's of the crop. As you will notice, many of the leaves are starting to turn yellow on the edges....ready to be harvested. The only variety that seems to be behind is the Florida Sumatra. They don't appear to be coloring up and thickening along with the other plants and the leaf production is not nearly as vigorous as the other plants. These started off the best and grew the fastest of all the plants.....confusing as to what went wrong with the volume of leaf produced.

Florida Sumatra


Argentina


Long Red Leaf original planting....the lower leaves of these plants were harvested this a.m. The largest leaff on this plant is 29" long by 20.5" wide. The flowering plant is 5' 10" tall to the top of the flower. The privacy fence in the background is 6' tall.

2nd planting of Long Red Leaf. It's interesting to note, that these leaves are ripening right along with the original planting.


Small Stalk Black Mammoth

Supplemental planting SSBM


Thanks for looking.

[ndv21]

Very nice looking plants indeed! Great job

[mrtr33]

Looking good. I've been busy with work/family/life/vacation/sickness, but my plants are still growing in the backyard. I have absolutely no idea when to harvest them. I'm hoping to take some photos this week to show you, but even then, I don't know what to do with them. The only reason I think I'm still okay (they went in the ground June 1st) is that none of the plants have flowered yet. I don't know about drying these leaves. Might just let them be. It was fun, though.

[nhcigarfan]

Are you rolling cigars or making pipe tobacco?

[BigMacFU]

This is really cool to see. Great job!

[ashauler]

Are you rolling cigars or making pipe tobacco?

Cigars, I hope.

[EGeekBMe]

This is an awesome project and seeing what you have done, they look great. I hope it works out well for you as I can imagine smoking your own product would (hopefully) be a very rewarding experience.