From Bud to Harvest

**ashauler** · 07-28-2010, 09:56 AM

I thought I'd start a new thread since the first one is getting a little overloaded with photo's. I hope at least a couple of you are enjoying this little project, I know that I am.

Here's the crop as it looked this morning. Keep in mind that the majority of these were set in the ground on 12 June.....about 6 1/2 weeks ago. As you can see by the 3' fence in the background, the tallest plants have exceeded it and are approaching the 4' mark. The majority of the plants are between 2 1/2 ' and 3'.

Florida Sumatra:
These plants remain vigorous and continue to grow skyward. The leaf production looks good, however, my choice of location is turning out to be counter-productive. The cedar trees immediately to the north of these plants, while providing good shade, sheds serious amounts of debris that wind up on the leaves. To what extent this will mar the leaves I dunno, however, since the intended use of these is for wrapper material, any damage to the leaves is bad.

The lone Argentina. I intended to use this leaf as a component of the filler or possibly a binder leaf.

Long Red Leaf.
I'm extremely pleased with the growth and leaf production of this variety.

As you can see, the bud is flowering and the leaf production appears to be very nice. Of the two specimens, I will allow one to flower and have removed the bud from the other. We'll see how pronounced the difference is between them from here.

Supplemental planting of LRL:

Small Stalk Black Mammoth.
As with the Long Red Leaf, only one of these will be allowed to flower. The leaves on these plants are just freaking huge already.

Unfortunately, I left my sheet with the dimensions on it in the car

. I'll either come back and update this post with them, or just measure them again this weekend.

Here is a bud forming on the black mammoth. This one will remain, the other was removed.

And the supplemental SSBM planting:

**big bill** · 07-28-2010, 09:15 PM

Those are great looking plants Jamie you must have the "green thumb"

**badwhale** · 07-28-2010, 10:48 PM

I've been silent, but I for one have been enjoying the posts / progress on this whole project. They do look great.

Green thumb, yes. Green foot, probably not.

actually, I hope not!

Will

**nhcigarfan** · 07-29-2010, 06:30 PM

They are good looking. From the title I was worried we would have to ban you for posting photos of "other stuff" you were growing.

**EGQ** · 07-29-2010, 06:53 PM

Why don't I see the pics?

**ashauler** · 07-30-2010, 08:24 AM

Originally Posted by EGQ

Why don't I see the pics?

Hmmm, I don't know Ed. The album is set to public, so you should be able to see them I think. Anyone else have problems?

**EGQ** · 07-30-2010, 08:26 AM

Now I see them (post-friending). Odd.

**ashauler** · 08-06-2010, 09:41 AM

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** · 08-06-2010, 09:55 AM

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** · 08-06-2010, 10:23 AM

Very nice looking plants indeed! Great job

**mrtr33** · 08-10-2010, 03:52 PM

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** · 08-10-2010, 07:20 PM

Are you rolling cigars or making pipe tobacco?

**BigMacFU** · 08-10-2010, 09:25 PM

This is really cool to see. Great job!

**ashauler** · 08-11-2010, 05:23 AM

Originally Posted by nhcigarfan

Are you rolling cigars or making pipe tobacco?

Cigars, I hope.

**EGeekBMe** · 08-11-2010, 11:03 AM

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.

**ashauler** · 08-12-2010, 09:56 AM

Visited the tobacco patch this morning.....without the goddamn crutches!!!! WoooHooo!! First time I've stood on my own two feet in 6 weeks. Damn, even the pain feels good.

Needed to water this morning so I set out the hose, rinsed the plants off and snapped some pics. I went ahead and removed the flower buds from all plants due to a nasty infestation of tobacco bud worms. These little bastards drill right into the buds themselves and hide...then come out to feed on the uppermost leaves of the plant. That is what the little holes in the top leaves are from. They don't seem to bother the mid or lower leaves, they let the grasshoppers have those.

It's too close to harvest to use anymore pesticide, except the insecticidal soap that is. I don't think they are doing enough damage to worry too much about anyway, especially since I'm not dead set on getting anything smokeable from this crop.

Here's the crop:

Florida Sumatra:

Argentina:

Long Red Leaf:

Example leaf of the LRL. You can see some of the indicators of ripening in this photo. The "alligator skin" texture is becoming more prominent along with some yellow mottling of the leaf. Not quite there yet, but soon.:

2nd planting of LRL:

Small Stalk Black Mammoth:

Example SSBM leaves, check out the size compared to that $1 bill:

2nd planting of SSBM:

I did not harvest any additional leaves today, and in fact I believe that I harvested the others just a tad early. This shouldn't have too much of an effect on the dried/cured leaf. I've learned it is better to be a little early with the harvest than late, so that is positive for the leaves I have drying already.

I'll start another thread to cover the drying/curing phase of this project. I'm coming to realize that this phase will be the most difficult of all, as well as the most risky.

Thanks for looking, and stay tuned.

**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.