04-05-2022, 05:51 AM
Yesterday marked one month since the seed were all planted.
Tobacco is doing pretty good both varieties. The Midewiwin is doing better than the "1000 Year Old" tobacco, but both are doing well enough. They are starting to bring in their first two true leaves, so it's soon going to be time to thin them out. Some peat plugs ain't going to need much thinning, but others are starting to look like tiny forests.
Some have fallen over and are dying, but I don't know if that is due to damp-off or the wind blowing the tray cover off and flattening the seedlings. Since the weight I was using to hold the lid on the greenhouse when I put them out to get sun wasn't enough, I hit upon the idea to tape the lid down. That has worked so far, but was a little late for some of them, it seems.
Nothing else sprouted.
I'm going to call the hemp plantation "dead", and try something else. I have a few grow books that I'm going to have to research for tips, but I still have a few more seeds left, to experiment on. Dope dealing neighbors appear to have moved out, so no seed to come from that quarter. What I got to work with now is all I got to work with.
Since we don't buy milk by the gallon any more, I'm going to use an old coffee can as a container to try to sprout some more of the pampas grass. The milk jug worked before, but a coffee can ought to do as well. Peat plugs didn't work at all for it.
And I'm going to try some red quinoa from a different batch. I'll plant it about a quarter inch deep this time, because surface sewing didn't work at all. Plus, the surface exposure left it vulnerable to mold, and that didn't help, not even a little bit.
No photos today, as the only thing growing is the tobacco. It looks the same as it did in the previous photos, just a tiny bit taller at around 1 1/2 inches tall, and is sprouting tiny real leaves that don't really have much definition yet.
No poppies have sprouted. Not from the grocery store seed, and not from the overseas seed. Come to think of it, the overseas poppy seed came from the same source as the hemp seed, and both appear dead. There is probably a lesson to be had in there somewhere. I also got some Mediterranean Palm Tree seeds from that same source, but it seems they might not be worth fooling with at all.
National Hemp seems to have closed up shop and moved on. As I understand it, they had high hopes of working with local farmers to grow CBD hemp, and they would then buy it and process it into CBD products. But the last 3 or 4 times we've driven past them, their sign has gone dark and no traffic in the parking lot, so they appear to have moved on. Probably couldn't get enough farmers to consider hemp as a cash crop after the government fucked us all out of growing tobacco, OR maybe they couldn't find any seed that could sprout, either... OR, maybe the apparent market rate on TEN GODDAMNED DOLLARS PER SEED was a little too steep for commercial farmers here in Poverty Land.
I acquired 100 seeds for 12.5 cents per seed, carefully selected for high CBD and low THC to stay within legal guidelines of both the Feds and the State, but actually got 125 seeds, so that dropped the effective per-seed price to 10 cents. A far cry from TEN GODDAMNED DOLLARS per seed. But I only planned to grow 4 plants to maturity for personal use. A commercial farmer, with acres to fill with seed, would go broke early at even 10 cents a seed, much less TEN GODDAMNED DOLLARS a seed!
Between the seed price and the potential for governmental buggery of the farmers, It's no damned wonder to me they all decided to plant their acreage in corn instead. We've seen that movie before around here where the government comes in a drops the bottom out of the market price for cash crops and leaves the farmer holding the bag.
You'd think a smallholder could get 4 plants out of 125 seeds, but maybe not... and so, there is no way in hell I'm going to pay TEN GODDAMNED DOLLARS per seed for seed I can't get to sprout.
We'll see what the tobacco does, and whether any of the attempts to get late sprouts from the rest of the stuff bear any fruit at all.
.
Tobacco is doing pretty good both varieties. The Midewiwin is doing better than the "1000 Year Old" tobacco, but both are doing well enough. They are starting to bring in their first two true leaves, so it's soon going to be time to thin them out. Some peat plugs ain't going to need much thinning, but others are starting to look like tiny forests.
Some have fallen over and are dying, but I don't know if that is due to damp-off or the wind blowing the tray cover off and flattening the seedlings. Since the weight I was using to hold the lid on the greenhouse when I put them out to get sun wasn't enough, I hit upon the idea to tape the lid down. That has worked so far, but was a little late for some of them, it seems.
Nothing else sprouted.
I'm going to call the hemp plantation "dead", and try something else. I have a few grow books that I'm going to have to research for tips, but I still have a few more seeds left, to experiment on. Dope dealing neighbors appear to have moved out, so no seed to come from that quarter. What I got to work with now is all I got to work with.
Since we don't buy milk by the gallon any more, I'm going to use an old coffee can as a container to try to sprout some more of the pampas grass. The milk jug worked before, but a coffee can ought to do as well. Peat plugs didn't work at all for it.
And I'm going to try some red quinoa from a different batch. I'll plant it about a quarter inch deep this time, because surface sewing didn't work at all. Plus, the surface exposure left it vulnerable to mold, and that didn't help, not even a little bit.
No photos today, as the only thing growing is the tobacco. It looks the same as it did in the previous photos, just a tiny bit taller at around 1 1/2 inches tall, and is sprouting tiny real leaves that don't really have much definition yet.
No poppies have sprouted. Not from the grocery store seed, and not from the overseas seed. Come to think of it, the overseas poppy seed came from the same source as the hemp seed, and both appear dead. There is probably a lesson to be had in there somewhere. I also got some Mediterranean Palm Tree seeds from that same source, but it seems they might not be worth fooling with at all.
National Hemp seems to have closed up shop and moved on. As I understand it, they had high hopes of working with local farmers to grow CBD hemp, and they would then buy it and process it into CBD products. But the last 3 or 4 times we've driven past them, their sign has gone dark and no traffic in the parking lot, so they appear to have moved on. Probably couldn't get enough farmers to consider hemp as a cash crop after the government fucked us all out of growing tobacco, OR maybe they couldn't find any seed that could sprout, either... OR, maybe the apparent market rate on TEN GODDAMNED DOLLARS PER SEED was a little too steep for commercial farmers here in Poverty Land.
I acquired 100 seeds for 12.5 cents per seed, carefully selected for high CBD and low THC to stay within legal guidelines of both the Feds and the State, but actually got 125 seeds, so that dropped the effective per-seed price to 10 cents. A far cry from TEN GODDAMNED DOLLARS per seed. But I only planned to grow 4 plants to maturity for personal use. A commercial farmer, with acres to fill with seed, would go broke early at even 10 cents a seed, much less TEN GODDAMNED DOLLARS a seed!
Between the seed price and the potential for governmental buggery of the farmers, It's no damned wonder to me they all decided to plant their acreage in corn instead. We've seen that movie before around here where the government comes in a drops the bottom out of the market price for cash crops and leaves the farmer holding the bag.
You'd think a smallholder could get 4 plants out of 125 seeds, but maybe not... and so, there is no way in hell I'm going to pay TEN GODDAMNED DOLLARS per seed for seed I can't get to sprout.
We'll see what the tobacco does, and whether any of the attempts to get late sprouts from the rest of the stuff bear any fruit at all.
.
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’