the Black Thumb Shrivel Log

[webmost]

So often in human affairs, diametrically opposite propositions are equally true in the same time and place. For example: A man ought to know his limitations, and the sky is the limit.

Me, I have a black thumb. I know that. That's why, before I even grabbed a vial of habano seeds, I made sure that I had someone else who could grow them for me. That's knowing your limitations. My surrogate gardener sprouted I dunno how many seeds in a seventy two cup tray. That meant she had a whole bunch surplus. She encouraged me to grow some in the back yard. That's where the sky's the limit. Alas, she gave me 18 sprouts and I briskly proceeded to kill off all but eight. Didn't take long. A day or three. Then last Sunday, I put the remaining eight in the ground. By next morning I was down to six. Here's what a typical one of the six looks like:

Is that sad?

Yesterday, Mother Nature let loose her sky on my unlimit. By the time I got home, here's my baccy patch:

My Black Thumb is alive and well. My sotweed not so much.

 

[darren1979]

Im sorry but i must admit i had a little chuckle with how you wrote that, them plants look very sorry for themselves. Is your soil heavy in clay? because it looks like it has a lot of standing water, you would need to add a lot of compost, dead leaves, sand or anything to help with the drainage.

 

[webmost]

Plenty of sand and even some silt. The whole state of Dull-Aware is really just a sandbank where the Delaware and Chesapeake rivers meet. Think of the silt bump where two cricks meet, then scale it up big. The highest spot in the state is a speed bump in the Acme parking lot. If you want a basement they hand you a brochure advertising diving boards. Had a bluegrass festival couple years ago, someone in the crowd started clogging, and before you know it cars had to turn on their windshield wipers two miles away. Need to go out of business quick? Start up a lawn sprinkler business in Delaware.

But the biggest factor is, we live at a rain magnet in Mother Earth, centered right at our house. Yesterday, for instance, I rode out from under a downpour and it just drizzled the rest of the way to work. Left the office it was sunny, rode into rain half mile from home. Any time it's questionable here at the office, I can call home, and the woman who has the privilege of laundering my skid marks will tell me it's pouring there. I can't explain it. Need a wise old Indian sachem to interpret what happy Water Spirit lives in the earth where our house stands.

She's married to a lightning god, too, I can tell you. If there's any big rumble round about, there will come an ear splitting crack, and then a tree in our development falls both ways at once. This happens six or ten times a year. Chainsaws and kayaks in every shed.

It's just like the park up in Pennsylvania called Muddy Run. It might just be fixing to spit anywhere in a 25 mile radius, but it will be pouring at Muddy Run. They built a dam and reservoir there to put it to good use.

Could be worse. There's a place just south of here called Townsend, in the Blackbird State Forest. All the tornadoes go right through a narrow little track right there.

Hey, darren, any man who quotes George Santayana in his signature line is OK by me.

 

[leverhead]

You might think about a raised bed, Houston has some of the same problems.

 

[Fisherman]

Plenty of wood chips for drainage too

 

[workhorse_01]

I agree. A raised bed and a pm to BigBonner for some new plants. That is sad all that work and hope then this. I know your pain, My garden had 8" of standing water and the ground was water logged. I finally got it drained and the droopy leaves are just starting to stand back up, and guess what the weather idiot is calling for this weekend again.... Rain all weekend!

 

[webmost]

Raised bed it is. I'll get on that this weekend.

 

[Fisherman]

Try some of the shredded wood chips from Lowes. They have one I used that allows you to water it when in a mix almost instantly compared to dryed peat moss addition to soil. It has little nutrient value at application but does not seem to rob nitrogen either and is ph nuetral at 2 months into using it too. Costs $3 for 2 cubic feet compared to $10 for 3 cubic feet of peat.

 

[webmost]

My surrogate gardener recommends humus.

 

[Fisherman]

Humus or compost is more expensive and in the case of what appears to be your garden. I think drastic might be the route to go Humis is better but drainage is your problem more so now than nutrition alone. And by next year you will have humis there in the chips place.

 

[Michibacy]

I'm not sure how far you want to go into this, but a lot of large scale farmers/in-ground greenhousers put corrugated tile a few feet into the ground to help drain away from their plots. It can be done with a hunk of 6" pvc drilled with holes or buy some tile.

Sorry to see the flooding in the plot!

 

[deluxestogie]

I'm not enthusiastic about some of the suggested solutions. The recent, prolonged rainstorms (which hit me in SW Virginia as well) were unusual. I had flooding, but my plants were not out yet.

Over the past few years, how often have you seen standing water in that part of your yard? If it's a rare event, caused by the recent torrential rains, and usually doesn't look like that, then I wouldn't make a big fuss about drainage. Just write it off as bad timing, and replant (hopefully with somewhat more mature transplants).

If that spot always looks like that after even minimal rain, then it's not tobacco country. Try a different location. If all else fails, then go with re-engineering your dirt.

Bob

 

[Boboro]

Its always good to put some rotton leaves in the dirt. Be sure to harden off the plants before you put them out.I dont belive in black or green thumbs. Its what you know and how much effort you put in it

 

[BarG]

You'll do Fine. Now show us your good plants. I got my first 72 cell tray ever full with new seedlings that are all the same age. JBD's burley grow out.

 

[workhorse_01]

I've never seen the rain this bad ,this early but as you said I've reengineered the soil. I cut a 4"wide by 3' deep ditch across the back of my plot and helped to amend my long grow soil with the extra soil, then slopped the soil so the future rains wouldn't hang around long enough to do any damage. It's only a quarter of an acre but it should hold a good bit of tobacco.

I'm not enthusiastic about some of the suggested solutions. The recent, prolonged rainstorms (which hit me in SW Virginia as well) were unusual. I had flooding, but my plants were not out yet.

Over the past few years, how often have you seen standing water in that part of your yard? If it's a rare event, caused by the recent torrential rains, and usually doesn't look like that, then I wouldn't make a big fuss about drainage. Just write it off as bad timing, and replant (hopefully with somewhat more mature transplants).

If that spot always looks like that after even minimal rain, then it's not tobacco country. Try a different location. If all else fails, then go with re-engineering your dirt.

Bob

 

[Knucklehead]

I planned for another drought. My landscape cloth is doing what it's supposed to, holding moisture. Now it's either cloudy or raining and the cloth is working against me. The Turks with no cloth are doing fine, but the VG and Burley are looking like they want a couple weeks of sunshine. If the rain will stop I think I'll trim off the lower yellowing leaves and see what happens. I should be ok if the forecast is correct. (like that's going to happen)

 

[workhorse_01]

I couldn't get my tractor on the veg. garden so I had my son run the middles with the tiller to kill grass It's still saturated here in the swamp.

 

[webmost]

Saturday, I was on the motorcycle all day long, dodging thundershowers on the way to a 150 year old cigar factory in McSherrystown PA which needs a web site. Time I took the factory tour, came to a tentative business arrangement, and rode back, the day was shot. So, Sunday I trotted down to the plant store and picked up ten bags of dirt. Five were a mix of humus and manure; five were a so called soil conditioner. Laid all this stuff in the upper end of my puddle trench. Plucked my poor drowned sproutlets out from the lower end and stuck them in my new dirt. Need to go fetch about eight more bags now to fill up the lower end.

By the end of the day, I was out thirty bucks, I had tore off a quarter size piece of my palm, I had sweat like the dickens, and I was covered in mud. When does this gardening thing start to get fun?

 

[workhorse_01]

It becomes fun 3/4 of the way through winter, when you've forgotten how much work it was, and start thinking about the next crop.

Saturday, I was on the motorcycle all day long, dodging thundershowers on the way to a 150 year old cigar factory in McSherrystown PA which needs a web site. Time I took the factory tour, came to a tentative business arrangement, and rode back, the day was shot. So, Sunday I trotted down to the plant store and picked up ten bags of dirt. Five were a mix of humus and manure; five were a so called soil conditioner. Laid all this stuff in the upper end of my puddle trench. Plucked my poor drowned sproutlets out from the lower end and stuck them in my new dirt. Need to go fetch about eight more bags now to fill up the lower end.

By the end of the day, I was out thirty bucks, I had tore off a quarter size piece of my palm, I had sweat like the dickens, and I was covered in mud. When does this gardening thing start to get fun?

 

[BigBonner]

Webmost

This is a prime example of digging a pond . I have seen where a lot of people want to dig a hole in their yard and put tobacco in it . Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't . It is the soil and drainage .If the soil doesn't drain then it would be just like a bucket filling up with no where to go . Under your soil there is a layer that is called a hard pan .Depth to a hard pan varies .

We use a subsoiler It fits on the back of a tractor to bust up the hard pan layer . After a couple of years we have to go back and subsoil again . The hard pan will harden back over .

I also use tile like Michibacy said , to drain fields that are more wet than others . But there is some soil that will not drain no matter how you try and drain it .