Chillardbee's 2016 Size Matters Grow Log

[chillardbee]

As the years progress and I have more beehives to attend to and more things to do with them, it seems like I have less time to do anything but the bare minimal with the tobacco. I noticed last year my posting were not as many or frequent as it was in years before when I was still building the bees up from the massive loss of 2011/12. Maybe I'll just make a point of posting updates on the first and fifteenth of each month.As the name of this blog suggests, I'm growing with the very best of spacing and well worked soil with plenty of organic matter worked in to be able to achieve the very best and biggest plants and leaves I can. This will limit the amout of plants I can grow as well as that the wife will have half the garden for veggies. So I am planning on 50 plants here this year with other plants in my beeyards. The ones in the beeyards will be planted just regularly with only what they need to grow.I'm limiting the varieties to 10 which I have yet to select. I'm happy with prilep, bursa, and izmar for my orientals. Harrow 12 and harrow velvet for my burley. I'm likely going to grow some one sucker and greenwood for dark air. Yellow gold, bamboo shoot, African red, del gold, lemon bright, and white gold. Well, there ya go, I guess I did select them.Where as last year I proccessed my baccy last year per variety to make blends that will help determine what I like best (i'll be smoking this through this year) this years crop will be proccessed all together just to speed things up. I'm smoking the last bit of the year before last years (2014) crop and I would of had more (another 4000 cigerettes worth) but the last pail went moldy (bummer) but that was only a quater of what was proccessed last year and I still have 4 totes of whole leaf from that year. I've got half of last years crop rolled and will roll the rest within the next 2-3 weeks before the bee season gets under way.A note: I have really been enjoying the cigs from 2014 and I think it's because I used the marlboro recipe. It's to early to judge this years crop but I used the export A premium recipe on them with the addition of a little bit of tobacco flavoured E juice with the 24mg of nic (well see how that goes) I hope I didn't mess up.Anyway, Welcome to my grow blog this year and may ya'all have a good crop yourselves this year and good luck.

 

[bonehead]

(with the addition of a little bit of tobacco flavoured E juice with the 24mg of nic) i am interested to know how that comes out and how you did it. does it give you more of a nic fix without making a lot stronger tasteing cig? good luck with your next grow. i always like your posts. if i had bee hives i would be in meade heaven.

 

[Jack in NB]

Hello Will -

If you're after leaf size and weight you might look at the NB11, and CT157 - both Canadian selections. Grew the CT157 last year (because I misplaced my seed collection at planting time, and didn't find it again until Nov.!), and it produced more and larger leaf than anything else I've grown to date. Haven't tasted it yet. The NB11 produces probably 20 - 25% more dry tobacco than any others I've grown (top was 120 g per plant one year; varies with weather here), and I'm guessing the CT157 will top that.

Again, no weight records yet - it's still hanging in the shed curing.

I've seed for both if you want some. Don tells me the FTT seed bank has been discontinued.

 

[bonehead]

Hello Will -
I've seed for both if you want some. Don tells me the FTT seed bank has been discontinued.

with an outstanding member like skychaser selling large counts of top quality seeds for dirt cheap it is not worth it to bother collecting seeds unless it is a variety that is not available at http://northwoodseeds.com/Seed List2.htm (in my opinion) you get certified seeds and all the information you need to choose the seed, seeds that should be rite for you.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

First I want to say I'm glad to see Chillardbee's grow blog back up and running. Still in Chilliwack I see, wondering if the 100 Mile House dream is any closer. I'm curious about updates on the White Angel Leaf as well.

I agree with Bonehead about Northwood seeds. I've already received my order for the year. I put in a request with ARS-GRIN for an Italian flue cured tobacco to try something different, but not being a scientist, I doubt I'll get approval.

 

[chillardbee]

Bonehead:The E juice was likely a mistake. I should of cased my baccy the way I did it for the 2014 crop which was the marlboro recipe, I've got that process somewhere on the site. I've really been enjoying these cigs from that year.Jack in NB: Bonehead:I've got over 200 varieties of baccy to choose from and it's now become a sensory overload to me. Out of all the varieties that I really wanted to try, I got them last year from the grin request. But I'd like to limit myself to about 30 to 40 varieties that include the best for myself from a selection of oriental, burley, fluecured, cigar, maryland, and dark air cured but that might be to many also. I'm not trying to grow a variety with the biggest leaf but rather to try to get the biggest leaf on the varieties that I do grow through well prepared soil and watering. Kind of like what (I think it was PO Green) did with his rusticas. That siad, I might add White mammoth to the list because that plant had the biggest leaf I've ever grown.China Voodoo: thanks and if your request doesn't go through, try messaging Jessica on the site here. She was going to help me out before the group request went in thanks to Bob and Wallace for that. I opted to go with them. give it try anyway.

 

[chillardbee]

Also, we are still planning on the move to 100 milehouse or an area that will be good for homesteading at least. We need our bee operation completely built up and running before we do that and we are half way done that and should be complete by 2019 -2020.

 

[chillardbee]

I had to review my list on here to see what I selected to grow. I've been busy as a bee in the bees and building more equipment but the time is nigh to sow the seeds. I'm starting the seeds this year by filling up the pot holder trays and casting the seeds over it. I will thin out the slower ones at some point and then after a bit of time I'll transfer them over to the 4" pots.The reasoning behind this is becuase in the past, I was transfering extra seedlings anyway to the pots that missed. So I'll just do it this way and it'll be easier in the end.Weather seems to be improving. That old saying about march coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb is being fullfilled. I got the OK from the property owners at my bee yards to plant a patch of baccy beside the bees. I'm figuring at least 100 plants for each yard with mixtures of fluecured, burley, oriental and dark air. This is on top of the 50 or so I'll have here at home that I'm going to baby and try to grow them as big as possible with more then adequate spacing.Happy Easter everyone.

 

[DGBAMA]

Big plans. I will look forward to following along.

 

[Chicken]

I'm thinking of getting me a beehive to help pollinate my veggie garden..

I'm sure it would be comical to watch me try to collect honey from that hive..I may try it.if I do end up getting one..

 

[rustycase]

I wish you the best of good fortune with the bees !
Tobacco, well, it will probably take care of itself...
ymmv
rc

 

[chillardbee]

Well, I didn't exactly follow the original plane on the way I started my seeds. I used the old 'wet tissue in a container' method to start them. I had to do it this way since my thought of only doing 10 varieties this year has become a reality of 36. I ended up select a bunch of maryland varieties because I looking for a couple of mainstay varieties out of it and do some seeds production.

The way it'll work this year is that i'll have 3 plants of each variety at home and in all three of my beeyards giving me my 432 plants and possibly some extra burley, and flu cures will go in this year too (where? I dunno)

So anyway, here is the final list of the seeds that are already planted (and sprouted showing green)

ORIENTALS
1. Bafra
2. Prilep P79-84
3. Izmir
4. Bursa

DARK
5. VA 407
6. Greenwood
7. VH Madole
8. One Sucker

BURLEY
9. Golden Burley
10. Barnett Special
11. Harrow 12
12. Harrow Velvet

FLUE CURED
13. Delhi 76
14. Delcrest 66
15. White Mammoth
16. Delgold
17. Yellow Mammoth
18. Yellow Gold
19. Bright Yellow
20. White Gold
21. Banana Leaf
22. Lemon Bright
23. Bamboo Shoot
24. African red

Maryland
25. Pennlan Type 41
26. Welks Pride Type 41
27. Eschly #1 Type 41
28. Mack type 41
29. Maryland 40
30. Maryland 21
31. Maryland 59
32. Maryland 14-d2
33. MD 64
34. Baur
35. Dean
36. Ash

I think the reason why I end up growing more varieties than I plan is that I get to a point where I realize that the grow season of a year, in this case, 2016, comes only once in my life and gosh darnit, i'm gonna make the best of it.

 

[Hasse SWE]

I think the reason why I end up growing more varieties than I plan is that I get to a point where I realize that the grow season of a year, in this case, 2016, comes only once in my life and gosh darnit, i'm gonna make the best of it.

That's true, and it will become interesting to follow this grow.

 

[chillardbee]

I've not posted in awhile. Even the best laid can go awry. I'm just thankful that I managed to get the baccy in the ground. The 'Size Matters' doesn't matter much anymore just as long as I can get something harvested for my smoking needs for next year.

So, rather than planting out in my garden and 3 beeyards, I managed to plop them all in my yard. The spacing is ridiculous, with 8" in row with 2' between row (2 plants per spot). So I have around 864 plants on the go ant they are actually doing pretty fine. We've had more rain this year than last year and thats helping a great deal. The plants are healthy.

I was kicking around the idea to plant another batch of burley but I just don't have the time. Be it as it may, I think i'll have a nice blend coming of this garden this year.

Running a bee business while still growing the bees and building the equipment is the main reason for the lack of time to do anything. I hope and i'm pretty sure i will, have more time once everything is finally built up for the bees. It might just be too that if I can do most of this work in the winter, I'll be able to do much more out in the baccy patch. Anyway, you gotta make time for the baccy, all bees and no baccy makes Will a grumpy bastard.

 

[deluxestogie]

Hang in there, Will.

I'm just guessing, but I suspect that you can harvest just as much tobacco (or more) by planting single plants in wider spacing within the same garden space. And it will be less work, since much of the caring and harvesting labor is per leaf.

My grow of your Chillard's White Angel Leaf produced genuinely huge, mild burley leaf. It makes a beautiful, blond cigar wrapper, and is excellent for mild burley blends in pipe tobacco. The leaf is larger and milder than Harrow Velvet, which is one of the mildest I had grown.

Bob

 

[DGBAMA]

I will be interested to hear how leaf thickness comes out. Wonder if the close spacing will act like shade and end up with light and thin cured leaf.

 

[Brown Thumb]

You gotta do you income first, sucks I know.
Good Luck, that is still one hell of a lot of plants to harvest.
Big or small.
Working all Day and tending to 500 plants makes me Grumpy at times.

 

[chillardbee]

only two pages on this blog this year, what a sad state of affairs. May this blog be stricken from memory. My "Size Matters" came to not and should of been called "Whatever, just geter'done".

I think I still got a decent harvest off of the 860+ plants considering the lack of attention given to the baccy patch. My first priming was in early july. The bottom three leaves on most plants were already cured (they look quit fantastic actually) and I primed the three leaves above them. I've just finished the second (and last priming) and once again 2 leaves already cured and I stripped the rest of the plants and got them stringed and hanging. the first prime cured excellent and this last one is well under the yellowing and looking good. leaf was brighter this year. leaves didn't turn out to much thinner, the dark air varieties had the thickest. the burley varieties did the least but thats from problems starting off in spring. bamboo shoot was winner, winner, chicken dinner.

All thats left to do is wait for the leaf to cure and we have the weather for it with temps reaching 30-34 degree Celsius. pull up the root balls and clean up the patch and give everything a good rotortillin'. I'm thinking my circumstances for next year will be better for a "size matters" grow. I'll be starting the soil preping earlier and starting up 6 4' x 4' x 4' compost bins soon using alfalfa bales, leaves, cow and chicken manure to rebuild the soil which has been ravished in the last 4 years of growing.

I'll pop in here to give the final wieghts of the cured leaf and then later for the finished baccy. By the way, I'll be casing this years batch the way i did it 2 years ago when I used the marlboro recipe (choco, anise, vanilla flavouring) in minute amounts. it added a fullness and sweetness like no other and with the same ol' glycerin and invert sugar mix to keep it moist.

I apologize for the lack of updates and i didn't even get any pictures this year, sorry guys, maybe next year, fingers crossed.

 

[deluxestogie]

Good to hear from you Will. 860 plants is a very big grow. But 860+!

Take a picture of something. Anything.

Bob

 

[riverstone]

Will
If you have access to wooden pallets, cable tie 4 of them in a square and you have a compost bin. Just keep adding on the ends to increase number. I have been running 2 for the last 6 years and they are due for renewal now. Just cut the ties at the front to use and then zip them up again when required. They are untreated, so no leaching of chemicals, and if not recycled they are heaped and burnt.