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Knucklehead's 2023 Grow Blog

Knucklehead

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I noticed the soil had pulled away from the cells so I gave them a drink of water. The wilt may have been thirst. They recovered after about 20 minutes and some clouds moved in so they are back outside under scattered clouds and sun. I will continue to keep an eye on them.
 

Knucklehead

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I filled one of my kiddie pools to about 1" of water to use the water as a level. I leveled the pool with some wooden shims and filled the pool with 4" of water. I plan on filling eleven 3 gal. grow bags with soil and let them dry out. I will then put the filled and dry grow bags into the 4" of water and see how far the water level drops once the soil has taken up the water. I will then try to determine where to drill my 2" drain hole.

1" water on one side, no water on the other side. I shimmed the bottom of the pool with wooden strips to within 1/4".
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Filling pool to 4" - 4-1/4".

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Dirt and grow bags cause you guys like pictures so much. Now back to work filling soil. Will experiment more tomorrow after the soil is dry.

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Knucklehead

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The soil didn't require nearly as much water as I expected for the dry soil to become fully moist. 4" is definitely too much standing water during rainy weather. Fully saturated soil and 4" of standing water would probably drown the little fellers. I drilled the drain hole at 3" and will watch the grow bags minus plants for a few days and watch the soil. I will probably go to 2" pretty soon. I would rather water more frequently than to drown the plants even once. Tobacco doesn't do well with too much water. We have good rain in the spring but dry as dust and temps in the 90's during the summer. Finding the right balance is going to be fun. My goal is to water once in the pool, allow the water in the pool to dry, allow the moisture in the soil to dry, then water again. I will be happy with watering every other day. Watering every day last year was too much. I was sick one day and missed watering and the plants wilted right down to the ground. The stalks were as floppy as rope. I had to water the roots while the plants lay on the ground until the stalks stiffened back up enough to be able to stand the plants back up. I thought I had lost the whole crop and only missed one day of watering. I want some off days.

(Note- 7" of soil in the grow bags)

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Anders A

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Vara, Sweden
The soil didn't require nearly as much water as I expected for the dry soil to become fully moist. 4" is definitely too much standing water during rainy weather. Fully saturated soil and 4" of standing water would probably drown the little fellers. I drilled the drain hole at 3" and will watch the grow bags minus plants for a few days and watch the soil. I will probably go to 2" pretty soon. I would rather water more frequently than to drown the plants even once. Tobacco doesn't do well with too much water. We have good rain in the spring but dry as dust and temps in the 90's during the summer. Finding the right balance is going to be fun. My goal is to water once in the pool, allow the water in the pool to dry, allow the moisture in the soil to dry, then water again. I will be happy with watering every other day. Watering every day last year was too much. I was sick one day and missed watering and the plants wilted right down to the ground. The stalks were as floppy as rope. I had to water the roots while the plants lay on the ground until the stalks stiffened back up enough to be able to stand the plants back up. I thought I had lost the whole crop and only missed one day of watering. I want some off days.

(Note- 7" of soil in the grow bags)

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Clearly, we have different problems to solve depending on where we live in the world, hot and dry summers are something very distant for me, on the other hand wet and rainy summers, I am familiar with that. And short and cold :) But today I picked a sure sign of spring, Tussilago, a nice yellow flower that grows here in Sweden in the spring.
 

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Knucklehead

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Clearly, we have different problems to solve depending on where we live in the world, hot and dry summers are something very distant for me, on the other hand wet and rainy summers, I am familiar with that. And short and cold :) But today I picked a sure sign of spring, Tussilago, a nice yellow flower that grows here in Sweden in the spring.
Those are pretty flowers. Mine aren't up yet but here is a photo from last year.

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Knucklehead

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I've taken the water level to 1".
Perhaps in the summer I can water in the morning and evening every other day if the reservoir will carry over to the next day. That will still give me every other day off. I won't need to water as much in the spring with smaller plants and I don't want to drown them.
 

Anders A

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This is my second dose of fertilizer. I use a conductivity/TDS meter to determine how much fertilizer to use. 900 for burley, 750 for all the others. A commercial tobacco grower in Kentucky we call BigBonner recommended the meter. He uses it in his float trays in his greenhouses. It's made by Hanna.

View attachment 45057


This is my second dose of fertilizer. I use a conductivity/TDS meter to determine how much fertilizer to use. 900 for burley, 750 for all the others. A commercial tobacco grower in Kentucky we call BigBonner recommended the meter. He uses it in his float trays in his greenhouses. It's made by Hanna.

View attachment 45057

I have bought this now, and it seems to work well.

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Knucklehead

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Planted 11 grow bags. I have to go buy more soil. It has taken seven 16 qt. bags of soil to fill twelve 3 gal. grow bags. A trip to Lowe's is in the near future to finish out the grow. 11 grow bags per swimming pool. Total 44 plants with 4 extra seedlings.

In preparation for planting, I pinch off the lower seed leaves and the leaves that I clipped early on. I plant up to the first true leaf. The extra stalk under ground will grow roots and the seedlings are less floppy.

Before

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After

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Plenty of leaf above ground to catch sunlight. Seedlings are sturdy and don't flop around due to planting depth.

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Weather today is scattered clouds turning to rain this afternoon. (Supposedly).

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