Lefty Poor Man Grow log

[Leftynick]

Friday update.

This is my current harvest of samsun 85

I have collected some of the Samsun plant before this. However, I find that after priming some lower leaves, the upper leaves start to yellow and mature. so I keep priming the yellowed leaves until there is 2-4 leaves left. So I am afraid the plant will die before it even flower. Maybe i need to sacrifice some of the leaves to make sure the plant will flower. However, upon my research, I found that there are 2 nursery that sell Samsun 85 in Russia. One of the nursery claimed that Samsun 85 is an F1 plant. Even though I bought it from another company, is there any chance that my plant is also a F1 seed? this will make saving seed from my plant is useless.

These are air drying process for Zimmer and Havana plant.

The leaves is very small, as expected from small pot. I trim down my Zimmer plant to ensure there are no mud lugs from any of them. I also hope that trimming will make the upper leaves grow bigger.

My overall garden. I have transfered 2 Zimmer plant to bigger pot, the same as havana and samsun plant.


Look like some of Zimmer plant also affected like my Samsun plant.


This is the first plant affected by the crinkly leaves. It wouldn't grow bigger leaves but seems like the upper leaves slowly recovering it's shape.


My havana plant. The leaves are starting to yellow. the leaves is very good, no crinkle and growing strong. I think if it planted on the ground it will make a good wrapper leaves.


Another zimmer plant affected.


My best Samsun plant is growing happily in new container. However, like I say, the leaves continue to yellow until the upper level of the plant.


Here is one of the severely affected plant. The main stalk are also bent.


I have some usable leaves, although my expectation is harvest that will be enough to cover me until at least next season harvest. Right now it can only cover for maybe a week supply. Will seriously consider buying a bigger pot. I am considering making cheroot with my havana and Zimmer harvest because of the small leaves. or maybe just shred everything and mix it to my cigarette blend.

 

[Leftynick]

Update

I finally dug out some of the weird looking leaves plant to diagnose. As I expected, the issue is the root not forming correctly. I inspect the soil i used and find the problem. The clay soil was not the problem. the layer of compost help to prevent the soil from clumping. The problem is, the amount of rock i find in the soil. during the planting, I did not break up the soil enough to separate the smaller stone from the soil and it interfere with the root from forming nicely in the soil. Here are the pic of the root ball.


My zimmer plant is growing nicely with the soil that I break up properly.


However there are some plant still showing the same weird looking leaves. I will check these plant soil after I harvest them.


My Samsun Plant finally blooming.


The Havana plant recovered the transplant shock and starting to grow again.


I have a really important question now. The leaves I harvested few weeks back are color cured nicely, and now it has been sun dried to the point of crackling when handled. After raining it has been brought to nice medium case. However, when i test burn it, the leaves doesn't stay burned. what did I do wrong? Do I need to let it some more time hanging? Or should I let it rest a while after sun curing? I read that Turkish strain can be smoked right after it is dried and no fermenting required. The test batch of sand lug I tried a while back does not have this problem.

 

[Leftynick]

It's been a while since my last update. I had an accident couple of weeks back while making a pot out of paint bucket. While making the drain hole using a machete, my hand slipped and I cut my left pinky finger, deep enough to cut my flexor tendon. 5 days in hospital, one operation to repair my tendon, a week of rest now I am back at home only to find all my air dry tobacco covered with mould. Thank god its only sand lugs and my turkish are fine.

My tobacco are growing nicely with havana are flowering. This plant haven't even budding when i leave so I dont have time to bag it. It is flowering at the same time with my samsun so, i have to discard both seed pod now.



harvested a few leaves. My plant are heavily attacked by mealybug, assisted by ant. I need a method to get rid of mealybug as dishwasher spray seems to not working with them.

Some goodness did happen after all;


my very first all homegrown, roll my own cigar. This is entirely zimmer spanish sand lugs. I collected all the lugs that had dried on the plant and rolled them into cigar. Tasted very raw, but burned pretty well, medium nicotine content. I enjoyed till the last smoke, although the taste is green with a lot of grass, all i get is satisfaction.

Lastly, the picture of my cast, i am scheduled to wear this for another 4 weeks. The doctor changed my splint to plaster cast as i keep removing my plastic splint, and he told me he didn't want to be responsible if i break my tendon once again.

 

[Tutu]

That's a post of extremes! On the one hand your first homegrown cigar, on the other hand a full cast.
Too bad you couldn't bag your plants. Let me know if you need new seeds anytime.
I hope your pink finger recovers soon. I guess it would be nice to use in the process of making cigars!

 

[Leftynick]

Thank you Tutu. I have been waiting for them to flower, then when I am not around, boom, all of them flowering at the same time. I think the seed you gave me will last a long time.

My first harvest of samsun plant has finished drying. The taste is exactly like peter stuyvesant cigarette that my brother love to smoke. Flavor wise is good but it lacked of strength, like sucking on straw. I think it need some blending with burley. Nicotine strength is med low, and because of the low strength, i am smoking more of it than my regular traditional tobacco. But I am loving it. As all my cigar tobacco being discarded, i decide to do some cigarillos from my samsun plant.



this is the size of cigarillos i am expecting to roll with my cigar tobacco. Maybe 1 or 2 big sized cigar from bigger leaves, but everything else will be this big.
This cigarillos tasted like oversized cigarette, mainly because of the tobacco, but it is good. I have enough tobacco that can last me maybe 2 month? There are still few leaves drying, and few leaves that are waiting to be harvested. I am waiting till all of them fully mature before harvesting.

 

[Leftynick]

Ouh yeah. This arrived today. Thank you very much Hasse swe for sharing.

 

[Charly]

Hello Leftynick,


I just discovered your grow blog and all the bad things you had to go through, i feel really sorry for you and your wife, I hope you will now have some more lucky times !!!
There are moments in life in which nothing works as it should, but it won't last
So keep on doing what you love and luck will come back.

Now that you have seen that you can grow tobacco, you will do it better and better each time.
I have only one year of tobacco growing, and I feel I understand better what I have or have not to do to make it better (finger crossed, we'll see next year if I do better )

 

[Hasse SWE]

Ouh yeah. This arrived today. Thank you very much Hasse swe for sharing.
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Nice to see that they arrived. I thought it would take longer than it did

 

[Charly]

Ouh yeah. This arrived today. Thank you very much Hasse swe for sharing.
View attachment 19653

That's the kind of mail I love finding in my mailbox !
Happy growing

 

[Leftynick]

Thank you Charly. It is what we call as life. I try to keep optimistic view of it. I view everything happened as my opportunity to learn more on life. It is sad while it happened but I always find valuable lesson in it.

This is also my first year of growing in fact, anything at all. I never do gardening before aside from helping my parents watering their flower everyday when I was a kid. Thankfully I get result. I am living in a place where I can grow tobacco all year round so I think I will learn better each grow too. I even planning on new variety to plant after this, maybe after my cast is off. Good luck on your next tobacco growing season!

 

[Leftynick]

Nice to see that they arrived. I thought it would take longer than it did

Mail from Europe usually arrive to my place around 2 weeks time, if there is no intervention from customs based on my previous experience. So it is on schedule. Thank you very much.

 

[Leftynick]

My next project maybe.


My backyard has plenty of space but as I say before, these are the grazing ground for my landlord's cows and goat. Currently the space has been a crawling with crabgrass and mimosa pudica plant. That's why I decided to till the ground and get rid of the weed, to avoid snake lurking in the tall grass. My concern is are the cows and goats eat tobacco plant? I don't want to plant some tobacco just to be food for these livestock. I am thinking maybe 5 or 10 plant here.

 

[Hasse SWE]

I know that the moose, the deer and the deer does not move on to tobacco. Cows are probably no problems, the bulls might... Have worked at the slaughterhouse, and know that the bulls can eat things that their women do not like to eat.. We was never surprised at what could turn up inside a bull..

 

[Leftynick]

Thank you. There is only one bull in the herd. And he rarely seen around. I think the goat keep away from my current tobacco plant. Just gonna plant and hope for the best. Finger crossed.

 

[deluxestogie]

If you can erect a section of wire fence (box fence or chicken wire) through the center of each row of plants, that will prevent the goats from casually walking over the tobacco. They might eat a little, to find out that it tastes bad (although they eat some awful plants, like poison ivy). While the transplants are small (and tastier), you might want to cover them with some sheer fabric that goes over the fence wire like a tent. Once the plants are bigger and less palatable, I believe they will be safe from the goats.

Poultry will eat tiny tobacco transplants, but with larger tobacco, they just eat any bugs they find.

Bob

 

[Leftynick]

I have some leftover plastic pet fence that not enough to fence all of the space. I think I can do the between the row fence. I also can use my current pot clear plastic as cover until it is big enough. Thanks for the idea.

 

[SmokesAhoy]

I wouldn't put it past goats, but everything else should be safe. I know for sure deer are safe-the very first year (tobacco is not grown here in this area) they nibbled some leaf but either they pass lore down or there is genetic memory or something but they have never touched it since.

 

[Tutu]

The Garcia Effect perhaps

 

[Leftynick]

New year update.

First of all, happy new year everyone. Been busy between Dr appointment and physiotherapy so no time to update until now.

First some pic of my garden

here is my potted plant. Some of the Spanish zimmer plant are stunted. The best Samsun plant are started to bloom and this time I bagged them in time.

my backyard garden. I transfer 2 spanish zimmer plant and 3 little dutch plant as practice grow. I am starting 2 new cigarette seed to plant here, Big Gem and Harrow Velvet.

my bagged plant. The flower already bloomed inside the bag.

my little dutch in a pot. I found a 10 liter case that i converted to a pot. It is during this project that I cut my pinky finger.

my current tobacco curing. I lost another half of my tobacco during air curing because of almost daily rain due to mold. Last time I do air curing indoor, but lost all my leaves also because of mold.It supposed to be aging naturally but my climate is hot and humid all year round. It is hard to keep away from mold. I am changing my strategies after this. I will immediately store them low case after color curing. No problem with my cigarette tobacco because I immediately store them after color curing and do flash dashboard curing for a week before smoking them. I also start to air cure my cigarette tobacco because of daily rain.


I immediately rolled the surviving leaves into cigar I am hoping to smoke them this afternoon. This is a blend of spanish zimmer volado and seco, mixed with havana seco. The bigger one is binded and wrapped using spanish zimmer leaf and another binded and wrapped using havana leaf. I am hpping of using havana ligero, spanish zimmer seco and some little dutch blend after this.

 

[Leftynick]

Some note on the leaves. The havanna variety is really good for wrapper as it is thin, elongated and have very small secondary vein. It is also not affected by mealybug during growth. The spanish zimmer have notable secondary vein, a bit thicker and wider than havanna. It also attract mealybug by million and started to spread the bug to nearby plant. It is fascinating to me to see such different between variety.