Deluxestogie Grow Log 2021

[peterd]

If your local drench becomes impossible to find here is another source.

You can get it by the gallon as well as 2.15 gallon.

This is pro stuff so over 20% vs 0.2% in the Amazon one so a container will last you a very very long time.

 

[deluxestogie]

Not having to mix a potent poison using a finely calibrated pipet is the precise reason I prefer the Bayer / BioAdvanced imidacloprid preparation. It's more appropriate for home gardeners. My transplant water for a bed of 16 plants is 2 gallons. This requires 3 fluid ounces of the Bayer preparation. Quick and easy to measure, and not all that critical. The 20% stuff would require 0.03 fluid ounces (0.887206 cc). If I spilled any of that concentrated prep on my skin, I would briefly turn into a stately coach, then into a pumpkin.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Just to pass my endless idle time (between doing the laundry, spraying BT and harvesting some veggies), I measured the 10th leaf of each of my two front porch poser Little Dutch.

Leaf Length: 30"
Leaf Width: 10"

I just might have some slightly shade-ish grown Little Dutch cigar wrapper there.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

All the missing leaf is piled loosely into a bushel basket in the curing shed.

At the moment, I am smoking one of the most delicious cigars I've lit up in a long time. I would post a picture, but it looks like a dog rocket. (Even @deluxestogie has his appearance standards for posting a stick!) The filler is 1 leaf each of Corojo 99 seco, viso and ligero from 2019, wrapped in WLT Peru ligero wrapper and binder. Even though I know exactly what went into this specific cigar, this kind of magic is usually impossible to duplicate.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Weather Forecasting is Broken

I was forced (by my tomatoes) to make a pot of chili today. A big pot. The temp will still be 85°F by dinner time. What was I thinking?

Weather forecasts didn't use to be so useless. Using historical weather patterns as predictive in computer weather models is becoming a less meaningful tool.

Weather Underground, at 5:00 pm, forecast zero rain for this evening. We're in a drought here. At 5:05, the sky darkened, and loud claps of thunder, accompanied by high wind gusts moved in. I shut down my computer, and unplugged important things. At 5:10, the NOAA radio warned of a severe storm. (Nice job, boys.)

Our local meteorologists always advise about whether or not to carry an umbrella, whether the evening will be nice for grilling out on the deck, and the expected weather at local sports events. It's not like forecasters in farming communities, where the forecast impacts the entire existence of farmers. (No need for an umbrella today; grilling will be ideal tonight; no need for a jacket at the baseball game.)

In the 25 minutes during which it stormed here, I got a heaping 1" of rain. Needless to say, my sun-curing Trabzon, happily pictured in the previous post, were looking a bit forlorn. I gathered the scattered, soaked leaf from the grass and spread it to dry in the shed. The leaf still hanging will have to dry in the sunshine that is now peeking out.

I needed the rain, so I'm not complaining about finally getting some. And that chili is mighty good, sitting out on my porch in the 69°F temp.

Bob

 

[Hayden]

We could send you some more clouds or even better swap our weather with southern europa.
We had rain basically every 3 to 4 days and not really nice temperatures which completly destroyed our tomatos.
The amount of destroyed tomatos would bring tears into italian eyes but it shows that you can't expect as nice weather as the last 3 years

At least the forests can get a good amount of water after the last dry summers.

 

[deluxestogie]

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

You just can't trust the weather forecasts! They confidently predicted that the remnants of Tropical Storm Fred would swoop over my house at 1:30 am this morning, knock down one of the huge, aging Silver Maple trees in my front yard, and cause it to completely crush my bedroom. Since this was a certainty, I fell asleep with peaceful thoughts.

Alas, I awakened at 8:30 am. The storm was well passed. My trees were still standing. Not even a small branch had come down. So I am still caught in the endless, cosmic cycle of growing, blending and smoking tobacco on my front porch.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Field of Spider Dreams

All of those puffy, white patches spread over this recently mown pasture are not dandelions. They are spider webs atop the grass stubble, and revealed by condensed morning dew. My rough estimate is that there are about 1000 separate spider webs per acre. Over the next hour, the fog will lift, the condensation evaporate, and the spider webs will disappear from human sight.

Bob

EDIT: 1,000 webs per acre would be 1 web per 43 square feet. A less romantic estimate would be more like 10 to 20 webs per 100 square feet, or easily 4 times my initial estimate. And for every web, there is a spider.

 

[peterd]

Beautiful observation Bob. The United States is home to around 3,500 species of spiders. Most of the spiders in the USA are not dangerous for humans or larger pets. In fact, there are only two types of spiders in the US that can be dangerous for humans: the black widow and the brown recluse. They are some of the most beneficial insect eaters out there. While working on my massive woodchips hauling project I am covered in spiders at times. One I named Fred, he perched on my shoulder like a parrot and rode around with me to the backyard and back. He was a jumping spider, one of my favorites. I sat in my folding chair outside on a morning break stopping for a quick drink and after crawling from one side of the collar on my shirt to the other he jumped off onto the chair and we said our farwells.

Life is good!

 

[deluxestogie]

Most people make a concerted effort to keep their ceiling edges, baseboards and corners free of "cobwebs" inside the house. Any big spider inside my house gets squashed. (They are not poisonous, but can definitely bite and construct huge webs.) But I usually leave all the tiny ones in their nooks, crannies, corners and cornices. They are my free mosquito traps.

On my front porch, I keep a 4' long hazel switch. Each morning, I blindly sweep it through the air and over the steps, to remove the nightly spider webs. I don't see their builders again until nightfall.

Bob

 

[smallwanderings]

Years ago on the tv show Nova they showed a spider that held a small rectangular web with its four front legs and used it as a net to catch insects as they flew within its reach. I don't remember which spider it was, but it was very fascinating to watch.

 

[deluxestogie]

And one final spider post, a reprise from 5 years ago:

Bob

 

[GIL]

When my wife sees something like this, she screams so loud that all the neighbors know she saw a spider.

 

[deluxestogie]

I mowed today. To prevent my bald scalp from being torn from my skull by savage fruit tree branches, I wear a designated ballcap. The cap is made from the heaviest canvas I've seen since the Army Surplus Korean War pup tents in the late 1950s. I always just hook it over the iron rail on my porch, so it can dry out, and catch some occasional rain and sunshine.

As I began to mow this afternoon, something kept touching my head at the apex. I tried to brush it away several times, but couldn't really identify what it was. When that touchy feel moved to the side of my head, I removed my designated mowing ballcap, to see if something might be inside of it. "Help me! Help me!" a tiny voice cried out from the sweat band.

Apparently, a little spider had decided that the cool shadows inside a super-thick canvas ballcap was a great place to spend a hot afternoon. It didn't bite me. It just freaked out, searching for a route of escape. I obligingly launched the poor thing into a patch of already mowed grass. Can little spiders suffer from PTSD?

Bob

 

[GreenDragon]

... Can little spiders suffer from PTSD?

Bob

Don't know about the spider, but reading this gave me a flashback from the way back machine. When I was a teen, my friend and I were playing baseball in the back yard. My buddy cracked one into my Mom's flower bed, and I went into said flower bed after it. And through about 10 Orb Weaver spider webs. I was suddenly wrapped in web with ten huge spiders crawling over my face and body. There is a gap in my memory between the time I hit the webs and got all the spiders off. (I may or may not have freaked out a little bit.) I do distinctly remember that they are a lot harrier than you might think.

Here's what they look like:

 

[deluxestogie]

When I stalk-cut my tobacco, it is often done after the lowest leaf has been primed. This leaves a tobacco stump of at least 12" sticking out of the ground. This season, I thought it might be interesting to compare the onslaught of suckers that emerge from these stumps to the suckers that appear from a bed in which the stalk stumps have been lopped off at the ground level.

The reason this is meaningful is that suckers, even those that will be neglected and left to freeze, continue to provide shelter for hornworms. If these suckers are not regularly sprayed with BT, the hornworm burden that overwinters in the soil will increase in proportion to the volume of ignored suckers. The green, standing stalk stumps appear to provide a significant head start for suckering. Those root systems with no stalk at all have no source of nourishment until they can manage to get a leaf to emerge.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Tobacco Ring-Spot Virus--maybe

I have watched this single NB-11 plant for weeks now. I still believe that this chlorosis pattern is TRSV, but it may simply be a genetic mosaic hiccup of chlorophyll (as seen in many "variegated" shrubs). Since first observing this in upper lugs, I have noticed that the pattern (infection) has spread up the stalk in a feeble manner, revealing only the most minimal signs in the top leaf.

Equally important, the leaves of neighboring plants, including leaves that regularly rub against, over and under the affected leaves, show no evidence of spread. So my decision to allow this one plant to grow was not a disaster.

What I do find puzzling is that, if this is TRSV, the chlorotic areas should have become necrotic. If they do not, but instead color-cure just fine, then this was just a genetic mosaic.

Bob