A Weird Hillbilly's Garden

[Brotherman]

It's been 3 months and some days since an update.

Since then. I've transplanted the tobacco into bigger and bigger pots from the initial peat plugs. This weekend, I commenced to transplanting them iinto the yard, as several have outgrown the coffee cans I had them in.

2 or 3  months ago, I transplanted one into each of two planters, The one died, and the other is surviving, but is not doing much towards leaf production. We had a lowly onion trying to sprout itself in the kitchen, so I planted that into the planter with the surviving tobacco plant. Since I did that, the bugs have stopped eating the tobacco. I don't know if it's due to the onion, or if the tobacco increased it's nicotine content in the leaves. I've read some that tobacco increases it's nicotine content in response to getting bug eaten - nicotine is a natural insecticide. Either way, bugs leave it be now, but it still hasn't caught up with the plants I just popped into the yard and out of the coffee cans, and it is the one plant that has been out in the Big World the longest..

Friday, I popped 5 of the Midewiwin tobacco into the upper yard, and Saturday I added two more, for a total of 7 Midewiwin plants out in the big world. This evening I popped 6 of the "thousand year old tobacco" into the mid yard, so I've got a total  of 13 plants out at the moment.

I still have 9 Midewiwim plants in 3" pots that I'm planning to put into coffee cans tomorrow. Just 1 of the thousand year old tobacco left in 3" pots. In coffee cans, I still have 5 Midewiwin, and 4 "thousand year old" plants.

So that is a total of 21 Midewiwin and 11 Thousand year old plants still surviving. I started with 12 peat plugs of each.

And one onion that is sending out two stalks. I'm planning on letting the onion go to seed for next year, to multiply the onion crop.

I also have a couple bags of potatoes in the kitchen that have started to sprout. I've got no where with loose enough dirt to plant them, so they're prolly gonna die anyhow. Pity. I like taters, and they're easy to grow if you have some means of breaking up and loosening some dirt.

I'll post some pics if the tobacco ever straightens up like a tobacco plant. So far, they've been growing more like vines than plants, and that ain't normal going by the tobacco plants of my youth.

This year still might turn out to be a wash.

What I've learned so far:

1) Ignore the peat plugs, Not worth the effort.

2) Start tobacco in 3" pots.

3) put them out into the wide world earlier. Thunderstorms don't mean crap. The tobacco will survive them. I'd say 4 to 6 inches tall is big enough for them to survive out in the world. If you start the  plants indoors in March, that 4 to 6 inches comes around the beginning of May here, right after the last frost is done. Waiting to July won't help. At all.

4) Tobacco loves it some nitrogen.


5) Onions seem to be able to clone.

6) A gardener I ain't.

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I just asked God to give you some divine sunshine so you can start pluming smoke sooner then later.