From Bud to Harvest

**WOXOF** · 08-14-2010, 03:17 AM

Very cool Jamie.

**ashauler** · 08-14-2010, 03:59 AM

Hey Chris, where ya been brother? Nice to see ya posting again!!

**WOXOF** · 08-14-2010, 04:06 AM

Been way too busy with grad school. On the home-stretch now.

**ashauler** · 08-19-2010, 12:45 PM

Went to the tobacco patch over my lunch hour today to inspect the crop. We had a couple of days of rain earlier in the week, high winds, etc. Two of the Florida Sumatra plants and one Small Stalk Black Mammoth were blown down. Pop stood them back up for me and they appear to be none the worse for wear and should make it to harvest with no issues.

Speaking of harvest......Saturday will be a big day for me. All plants appear to be ready to harvest the bottom 1/3 of leaves. This will most likely be 5-6 leaves per plant for the Argentina / Long Red / Black Mammoth varieties and 3-4 of each Florida Sumatra, so somewhere around 50-60 leaves to pick, string, and hang.

The change in the leaves over the last couple of weeks has been dramatic. The texture of the surface of the leaf becomes very bumpy....alligator skin like, and they have noticeably thickened. They have gotten very, very, sticky. They shine from the oils and are now drooping from the weight.

I'm excited.

**ashauler** · 08-22-2010, 10:55 AM

Harvested the first 1/3 of the leaves from all the plants. I've heard many terms for this priming....viso, volado, primero.....whatever you wanna call it is fine with me. I harvested a total of 54 leaves and have them curing now.

Crop:

Florida Sumatra. 15 leaves harvested, largest leaf 20" x 13"

example FS leaf:

Long Red Leaf:
16 leaves harvested. largest leaf 30" x 14"

example LRL leaf:

Argentina:
6 leaves harvested. largest 24" x 11"

Small Stalk Black Mammoth:
17 leaves harvested. largest, and largest of the crop, 30 1/2 " X 17"

Overall view of the harvest...not a very good pic, but you get the idea:

Some ugly bastard with one of the leaves:

I hung 44 of the leaves using the same air curing method that I started with. I took 10 of the leaves and am trying a different method of color curing them. I'll detail the differences in the curing thread sometime soon.

I'll most likely prime the second 1/3 of leaves next weekend.

**mrtr33** · 08-23-2010, 09:54 AM

Really awesome job, man. I've kind of given up on my little garden. The plants are still growing, one has started to flower. I just don't have the time.