DaleB's 2025 grow blog

[DaleB]

It's a few days early, but I'll get it started now. I had a pretty interesting experience in 2023, but did not get anything going in 2024. For 2025 I already have some seeds purchased, and am just debating how much of which varieties to plant. I have some flue-cured and Samsun seeds I saved from the '23 crop, and bought a little Yellow Twist Bud, Chilean, and Perique back in February of this year ('24) with the intention of planting - I just never got around to actually planting them. Now, the reason that I bought a burley escapes me... I have yet to try a burley pipe blend that I actually like. There are also a few seeds left over from '23 -- these were bought from Seedman, so names and descriptions may be sketchy. There's "Virginia Brightleaf", Samsun, "Ontario Bold" (supposedly flue-cured), and the ever-mysterious "Tennessee Red Leaf". This time around I bought from NWT.

I have a 3' x 8' raised bed for tobacco, and a couple of good sized pots, maybe 5 gallons or so. I also have plans to do some landscaping around the side of the house which, if I actually get it done, might result in room for another 20-ish foot long row.

I think my approach will be to just plant a little of each in order to get a good selection of leaf for later blending. I have a 54-qt (51 liter) Sterilite tub full of flue cured Virginia leaves from the '23 crop, and a little Samsun that I need to get rehydrated and containerized as well. The VA is in a sealed tub at about 67% humidity for now; I'll probably drop that to 60% long term to reduce the chances of mold. I'm in no hurry; I have a good stock of commercial pipe tobacco that will last me a good while.

 

[DaleB]

Before the tobacco, there is maple syrup. Although we're not exactly known for producing maple syrup in Nebraska, I've got two silver maple trees in the back yard and two red maples on the side of the house. A couple of years ago I tapped the silver maples, but it was halfway through the sap season. I ended up with about half a gallon of maple syrup that everyone agrees is easily as good as any they've ever had. I distributed most of it to family and friends, and we ran out a few months back. Last year I didn't tap any trees because we didn't really seem to have an actual winter - we went from ridiculous cold snap to 40s and 50s with no in-between.

I was prepared for that to happen again this year, and was watching the long-term forecast. Last weekend I tapped both the silvers and one of the reds. They all produced pretty well for a couple days, but now have stopped. I think the temps are not getting cold enough at night. I've got probably 2-1/2 to 3 gallons off sap, which is not really enough to worry about boiling down, but I'll have to do it soon to keep the sap from spoiling. I'm hoping that the sap starts running again soon; if I manage to collect for an entire season, I'm hoping to end up with at least a gallon o syrup. I haven't measured the sugar content of our sap, and I didn't keep records the last time of the total amount I boiled down, but I'm estimating that I'll need 40 to 50 gallons of sap to produce a gallon of syrup. I boil it down in a propane fired turkey fryer - for days. It actually probably works out to be pretty expensive maple syrup when you take the propane cost into account, but I don't have a handy source of free fire wood as the Canadians and Vermonters do.

It's only the end of January. I'll concentrate, if you'll pardon the expression, on maple syrup for a while before starting my tobacco seeds.

 

[Skafidr]

Apparently, maple syrup producers around here have started producing syrup during the winters because the temperature rises so often now...!

 

[DaleB]

Not wanting to hijack someone else's thread, but from another one:

Start with Balkan White, then move up or down the matrix to find your Latakia happy place.

Bob

Well, here goes nothin'. I just ordered some Lemon VA, Perique, Latakia, and Dark Air Cured (from WLT, of course) to supplement my Samsun and "mongrel" combination of un-sorted VA that I've got on hand from my '23 growing season. I ordered the Perique to try some VA/Per, and blend a little in with my VA/Samsun to try and improve it. I have enough commercial tobacco to last a while -- I only average maybe a pipe a day, even when the weather is decent and I'm not sick, unlike the past couple of weeks. I'm slowly working my way through the stuff I like and would really like to just not buy any more.

I have a couple of lessons learned from my first season. First, I need to keep better track of my plants. I had four large, healthy, very robust and productive plants that I honestly don't know what they were. They were either "Ontario Bold" or "Tennessee Red Leaf", both from seedman.com. I planted them on a whim after planting all of my VA Bright and Samsun in the raised planter; these leftover seedlings went into a couple of large pots on the patio and in a flower bed. I honestly didn't expect much out of them, and I lost track of which seedlings were which, so probably 10-20 percent of my flue cured stock is of unknown heritage. It's going to be a bigger consideration this year, though maybe easier to keep track as I plan to expand the tobacco plants into a couple of new beds. The plants are decorative and the neighbors seem to like them.

Second, I need a better approach to drying and curing. I got a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of leaf produced by a relatively small number of plants. I had maybe 15-16 VA and a dozen or so stalks of Samsun, and the quantity of leaf when harvested was more than I had imagined it might be. As a result I had some problems trying to get it all cured without mold and other issues. This year I'm going to try a couple of different things for color curing. I also built a kiln last time around that was a huge pain in the ass and not terribly successful. I'd thrown it together using foil faced Styrofoam and wood, and it resisted all my attempts to seal it well enough to keep the humidity level where I wanted it - but I think it was actually too humid. Again I lost some to mold. I'm not sure what I'll do this time around, but I won't repeat the mistakes of the last time.

Meanwhile, I'll await my order from WLT and see what I can figure out while I wait for the right time to start my seedlings.

 

[DaleB]

My bag of leaf arrived today. I decided to start out by shredding and sampling a small quantity of each type, starting with Dark Air Cured. This stuff is definitely not for the faint of heart. Wow! Strong stuff, and the nicotine content is off the chart for me. The taste is not bad, but it's got a significant amount of "spicy" feel in the nose. I made it about five minutes into the bowl before I had to set it down and take a break. I can see why its use in the blends I'm interested in trying is quite limited. I have no idea what I'll do with a pound of this stuff! Now I'm going to get some food, assuming I can walk to the fridge.

 

[DaleB]

First sign of spring, tobacco-wise. A little activity in one of the Chilean cells.

 

[DaleB]

Is it too late to start over?

Every single seedling is dead. I suspect it started with a poor choice of starting soil. The seeds sprouted, but past a certain point where the seedlings got about a quarter to 3/8 inch tall with tiny little leaves, they just seemed to stop growing. After thinning them out I started putting them out in the sunlight during the day. That seemed to help, but they still weren't growing much. Finally I sprinkled a little fertilizer (some Miracle-Gro. all I had on hand) in the tray before adding water. Apparently that was a bad idea; they all died within a few days after that.

So, mid May... is this too late to start new seedlings or should I just wait for next year?

 

[deluxestogie]

Overwatering is the most common problem, when tiny seedlings die. The catch is that the quantity and frequency of watering varies significantly with the composition of the starting soil mix and ambient conditions.

Given the longer, hotter summers, you might be able to start fresh now. That would allow you to put the transplants out by mid-to-late June. The time to harvest mature leaf is ~60 days (± 20 days). So that might work. Typically, harvesting mature seed requires another 4 to 6 weeks beyond leaf maturity.

Bob

 

[DaleB]

I may have overwatered, but I was actually watering less the past couple of weeks than I was early on. I used Burpee "eco-friendly seed starting mix with coconut coir", which claims to have some fertilizer in it - 0.06-0.03-0.03. It seemed to resist wicking and NO moisture got to the seeds until I got it all damp enough to start wicking. Before that I'd fill the tray halfway with water, and a day later the tops of the cells were still bone dry. The last time I grew tobacco I used a mix of peat, compost, and whatever else I had handy and they grew just fine. This time it's been a constant struggle. I'm going to dump this stuff out, refill with soil from the planter where the seedlings will be going next, and start over.

We've got my 4 year old grandson here today, that ought to be a goo project for us to get done.

 

[deluxestogie]

Back in 2012, I had occasion to compare seedling growth in a coir mix vs. sphagnum moss mix.

The coir side is on the left.

Bob

 

[johnny108]

I grow more mold than seedlings in coir.
But it works great as a major component of my large container semi-soilless mix.

 

[DaleB]

Back in 2012, I had occasion to compare seedling growth in a coir mix vs. sphagnum moss mix.

The coir side is on the left.

Bob

That looks about like my 2023 seedlings grown in regular potting soil, to this year's. Actually your coir seedlings look a lot bigger than mine did, right before they all died. A couple weeks ago I filled up our two 3' x 8' planters; the soil had settled and they were about half full. I used a mix of a couple different kinds of bagged topsoil, some compost, and a little cow manure and turned everything over a couple times with a shovel to mix it all together. I'm just going to use some of that.

 

[johnny108]

That looks about like my 2023 seedlings grown in regular potting soil, to this year's. Actually your coir seedlings look a lot bigger than mine did, right before they all died. A couple weeks ago I filled up our two 3' x 8' planters; the soil had settled and they were about half full. I used a mix of a couple different kinds of bagged topsoil, some compost, and a little cow manure and turned everything over a couple times with a shovel to mix it all together. I'm just going to use some of that.

I would whole-heartedly recommend some
Perlite for the seedling mix.

 

[deluxestogie]

I've been quite satisfied with:

• 2/3 sphagnum peat
• 1/6 Perlite
• 1/6 vermiculite

Bob

 

[johnny108]

I've been quite satisfied with:

• 2/3 sphagnum peat
• 1/6 Perlite
• 1/6 vermiculite

Bob

Do you fertilize with this mix?
What with, and how often?

 

[deluxestogie]

I use Miracle-Gro sphagnum peat and Miracle-Gro Perlite. Both of these contain slow-release fertilizer. I add no fertilizer until they go out to the garden bed.

Bob

 

[DaleB]

All of my seedlings died this spring, so I ended up not planting anything. Now I don't feel so bad about that... last night we had a storm that blew over nearly everything in our veggie garden planters. The sweet corn is a total loss, the tomatoes may survive, the cucumber vine is in bad shape, and we lost several tree limbs. I'm sure it would have really done a number on any tobacco plants I'd had out there.

Oh well. I have enough leaf from the last batch and from WLT to keep me in pipe tobacco for quite a while. I'll try again next year.