Bex
Well-Known Member
It has been suggested that I start a new thread, rather than dumping my detritus all over the forum. A good idea. And hopefully I can get this photo thing correct - I live in Ireland, where it is wet, windy, cool, etc. But I'm determined to grow and process my own tobacco. I have been growing for only about 4 years - and harvested the seeds from my original internet bought ones, under the assumption that the future generations will be more amenable to my windswept climate. Here is where I live (posting this to practice my photo upload ability - so many things to learn!!), in NW Donegal, with a climate kind of like Washington state. However, I am right on the sea, so weather can be quite violent at times.
Cool, the photo thing seems to have worked. Now for the PIA of resizing all my photos......
The spring here can be wet and wild, until the beginning of June, so I didn't start my seeds until the beginning of May - by the middle of June they were ready to go into my teeny weeny greenhouse. By mid July, I realized I had a problem. The greenhouse housed over 100 little tobacco plants. I needed to do something with them, so ended up buying a cheap polytunnel at the end of July:
I had to hide this behind a shed, and build a windbreak in the rear of it, so that the 60+mph winds we occasionally get here didn't blow it away. My plants went into it on August 4. Here's some:
Horribly late in a 'normal season'. But conceivably they can continue to grow here through November.
And now, I needed to get serious about curing them. In the past, when I only had about 20 plants, I was using a seed propagator to yellow them, by rolling the leaves into a towel and heating the propagator. The yellowing portion didn't work too badly - but it was what to do with them after that, that presented the problem. Plus, I really didn't have enough towels, or a big enough propagator, to do this for 100 plants. So, I began to 'study'....and came across deluxestogie's incredible can cozy. Cool, here was my answer.
Strangely, my 30 year old freezer had gone kaput at around this time. So, I also had the perfect container to do this in:
Sadly, I would not be able to use any of the suggested electronic components in Bob's thread. Now came the effort of finding 240v components with probes on them that I could drop into the freezer - I didn't want to start drilling through the side of it, etc. I found a thermostat, something like what would be on the oven, that went from 30C-100C (and let me tell you, doing the conversions from F to C were truly a headache!! Hopefully, you don't mind that I convert them back for this thread). I got a digital thermometer with a probe, as well. I built a crappy (probably temporary) rack for the inside, where I would press the leaves onto 'pins' to hang them, bought a 240V crockpot, and was ready to rock n roll.
The electrics are on the outside of the freezer:
The thermostat is a bit of a PIA, as it doesn't really show exact temps like a digital one would - it is marked in 5C increments but is horribly fiddly. Anyway, I was all set - I studied the cozy can schedule, wrote it down, and was ready to give this a try. I had two plants that I had planted outside as an experiment, that were doing fairly well, plus one in my greenhouse that had been flowering for a while.
I tested the thermostat, crockpot, etc., and it seemed that everything was going to work well. I was ready, confident and about to begin.....
Cool, the photo thing seems to have worked. Now for the PIA of resizing all my photos......
The spring here can be wet and wild, until the beginning of June, so I didn't start my seeds until the beginning of May - by the middle of June they were ready to go into my teeny weeny greenhouse. By mid July, I realized I had a problem. The greenhouse housed over 100 little tobacco plants. I needed to do something with them, so ended up buying a cheap polytunnel at the end of July:
I had to hide this behind a shed, and build a windbreak in the rear of it, so that the 60+mph winds we occasionally get here didn't blow it away. My plants went into it on August 4. Here's some:
Horribly late in a 'normal season'. But conceivably they can continue to grow here through November.
And now, I needed to get serious about curing them. In the past, when I only had about 20 plants, I was using a seed propagator to yellow them, by rolling the leaves into a towel and heating the propagator. The yellowing portion didn't work too badly - but it was what to do with them after that, that presented the problem. Plus, I really didn't have enough towels, or a big enough propagator, to do this for 100 plants. So, I began to 'study'....and came across deluxestogie's incredible can cozy. Cool, here was my answer.
Strangely, my 30 year old freezer had gone kaput at around this time. So, I also had the perfect container to do this in:
Sadly, I would not be able to use any of the suggested electronic components in Bob's thread. Now came the effort of finding 240v components with probes on them that I could drop into the freezer - I didn't want to start drilling through the side of it, etc. I found a thermostat, something like what would be on the oven, that went from 30C-100C (and let me tell you, doing the conversions from F to C were truly a headache!! Hopefully, you don't mind that I convert them back for this thread). I got a digital thermometer with a probe, as well. I built a crappy (probably temporary) rack for the inside, where I would press the leaves onto 'pins' to hang them, bought a 240V crockpot, and was ready to rock n roll.
The electrics are on the outside of the freezer:
The thermostat is a bit of a PIA, as it doesn't really show exact temps like a digital one would - it is marked in 5C increments but is horribly fiddly. Anyway, I was all set - I studied the cozy can schedule, wrote it down, and was ready to give this a try. I had two plants that I had planted outside as an experiment, that were doing fairly well, plus one in my greenhouse that had been flowering for a while.
I tested the thermostat, crockpot, etc., and it seemed that everything was going to work well. I was ready, confident and about to begin.....