So, looks like I am about halfway through the harvest. Watching Ian closely. If we are going to get severe and sustained winds, I am stalk harvesting all that is left.
I thought maybe the air circulation in my curing barn / garage might be lacking, so I started curing on the carport. Unfortunately, all my big beautiful potential wrapper leaves got attacked by HORNWORMS! It never occurred to me that a pest that barely troubled my live plants, might make swiss cheese out of my harvested leaf! I had some leaves right at two feet long, and when I checked on them, full of fist size holes. The leaves that still had lots of green, I found worms on, bug fat ones, fat on the fruit of my labor. Was I pissed? WAS I! LOL! And I don't think my plants have any more leaves like that left in them. I get lots of 16" to 18" leaves, but no more two footers.
Stringing them on wire seems to be working nicely. Even better than the rubber bands. I tossed a few hands cured in the garage that got moldy, maybe a pound altogether. Most of the rest seem to have come out nice. Haven't smoked any of the crop yet. I have a few special leaves curing in the office, some that got nice and yellow on the stalk, and I will roll a couple of smokes from them to sample early. Honestly, I can't wait. My results yeah, coulda shoulda been so much better, but I got something and I think it was worthwhile. Next year I will be able to put what I learned to good use. I had planned to double my planting, but instead I am now leaning more toward FEWER plants, further apart, with more care given to them individually. As it stands now, I am going with 20 plants in the ground of each of four varieties:
CT Broadleaf
Moldovan 456
Piloto Cubano
Criollo 98
I am liking the Piloto and Criollo as a filler blend, so they are in, no question. It's gonna be a wrapper shootout between the CTBL and the Moldovan, which I am actually kind of excited about. The Moldovan looks like pretty good leaf, though I haven't had any in hand yet. One or the other, between that one and the CTBL, is going down. Let's see which one is the prettiest, palest, shiniest, easiest to roll, best burningest, and tastiest. The next year I might match the winner up against one of the Burleys. I roll mostly Imperfectos and I like a big wrapper so I can cut out a nice curly curvey "S" shape from it, and the big burleys throw some mighty big leaves, so they are potential contenders.
Got all my seed in except for the CTBL, and it is inbound. Got my seedling trays. Just waiting for the end of January to start another generation of baby bakkers here at Finca Growley. 80 well tended plants put in the ground at the right time of year, with the right sunlight, right irrigation, right fertilizer, right pest control, right support, picking, curing, like The Donald says, "It's gonna be HYOOOOOGE!"
I will have everything picked in a couple of weeks, all cured and in my tupperware aging bins in a couple of months. Pics then.