A Weird Hillbilly's Garden

[Ninurta]

I mentioned in the shoutbox my ongoing hobby of trying to make something grow, and a member expressed an interest in following along and keeping updated, so I thought that making a thread to keep track would be the way to go.

First, I've gotta tell you, I don't really have a green thumb. I hated working in the garden all through my wicked and misspent youth, so it never really took. Since I'm retired now (I was tired yesterday, and I'm tired again today, so I reckon that equals "re-tired"), I have all day to do things and nothing to do, so I figured a hobby would be in order. I settled on trying to grow stuff because A) that's a REAL challenge for me!, and B) I appreciate cheap living and self-sufficiency, particularly in these times.

With the Controllers trying to make life difficult for smokers and vapers, being able to grow my own nicotine was a no-brainer, so tobacco was one of the things I settled on. Medicinal hemp is legal in Virginia now, but expensive as hell with the additional requirement of having to obtain a medical marijuana card and then traveling an inordinate distance to use that card at a dispensary (only 4 operational in the whole damned state at the moment), but since it has been legal to grow your own here since last July 1, it seemed more convenient and cheaper to just provide my own, so that is another component. Quinoa, a South American chenopodium has pretty high nutritional value , and seems to be pretty low maintenance - right up my alley! Additionally, the ancestral plant of quinoa, chenopodium berlanderii (goosefoot) has a long history around this area. The Indians here grew it before they had corn to grow, and it is a major component of the Eastern Agricultural Complex, one of the 7 main original agricultural cradles of the world. Pampas grass is going to provide arrow shafts, so it's included in my wee assortment. Some few different sorts of herbs round out the collection.

So - tobacco, quinoa, pampas grass, hemp, and some herbs. Hence the title of the thread, "A Weird Hillbilly's Garden" - because that selection ain't normal.

In the next few posts, I will concentrate on each in it's turn, giving some background and initial conditions for each, and we'll go from there.

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[Ninurta]

Tobacco

I settled on "native tobacco" or "sacred tobacco", known as nicotiana rustica as the variant of tobacco I was going to try first. Regular tobacco, "Virginia tobacco" is nicotiana tabacum. Rustica is a smaller plant, but more potent than Virginia tobacco, having anywhere between 3 and 9 times the nicotine concentration in it. It is the variety of tobacco that was grown by the Indians here when the English first set foot on these shores at Roanoke Island NC and a little later at Jamestown, VA. It is why the first clay pipes made in England for smoking tobacco had tiny bowls - a little bit of it goes a long way.

Since it is "sacred tobacco", protocol demands that I don't sell any of it. It may be gifted, or used as an offering or to smudge or simply to smoke, but selling it in crass commercialism is a big fat no-no. Rustica was replaced commercially by nicotiana tabacum, first imported as seed (illegally I might add) by John Rolfe at Jamestown. He obtained some seed smuggled from the Caribbean and called it the Orinoco variety. It was smoother, less harsh, and less potent than the native tobacco, and therefore more pleasant to smoke. Rolfe experimented and perfected the method of growing it, and from that point forward it was the type of tobacco exported commercially from the Virginia Colony to Europe, and became known as "Virginia tobacco".

Tobacco use in Eastern North America can be dated certainly to 200 BC, and may be inferred into the second millennium BC. A pipe found as grave goods at the Boucher site in Vermont, east of Lake Champlain (characteristic of the Middlesex complex of the Early Woodland culture, broadly affiliated with the Ohio Valley  Adena culture) , has been dated to around 200 BC, and has been confirmed to contain nicotine residue. The pipe was a tubular pipe (no pipe bowl, just a long tube ), about 15cm long, buried with a young adult female , radiocarbon dated to 125 BC to perhaps 300 BC, and predated the earliest known archaeobotanical evidence for tobacco in Eastern North America by at least 500 years.

Tobaccos are known for their concentration of nicotine, and Nicotiana rustica has the highest concentratio0n of all, anywhere from 3 to 9 times the nicotine content of "Virgina tobacco", the normal smoking mix for modern cigarettes, cigars, and pipes.

Nicotine functions by binding to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, causing increased heart rate, vsoconstriction, and increased alertness. In sufficient doses, nicotine can have hallucinogenic effects equivalent to psychoactive alkaloids such as ibogaine and harmaline. Lethal overdose is possible in extreme cases, though the likelihood is far lower for nicotine than for the alkaloids in other Native American psychoactive plants such as datura. It has been argued that one reason for the adoption of tobacco was that it was safer and more controllable than datura and did not require the intervention of ritual specialists. though tobacco was actually viewed as more powerful than datura by some native cultures."

My attempts -

Last year, test seed was sewn on 8/8/21, and started sprouting on 8/13/21, so it sprouted in 5 days. This year, in the mini greenhouse, it was sewn on 3/3, and started sprouting on 3/6, so sprouting in 3 days. There are two differences in conditions - the test sprouts were sprouted in dirt (from the yard), and this year the planting medium was soaked peat pellets. The test sprouts were sprouted in an open container, but this year they were sprouted in a miniature greenhouse, with a clear cover, so the combination of those two things probably held more moisture around the seeds. and may have kept them slightly warmer.

last fall's test crop succumbed entirely to damp-off, and that killed every single one of the seedlings within a month or so, most of them dying in a week's time. We're hoping for better luck with this year's production crop.

Last year's test sprouts:



Last year's sprouts at the height of their health, before the damp-off started taking them out:



This year's sprouts, photo taken yesterday afternoon:



Notice the little tendrils coming out of the seedling's stems like a spider web into the planting medium. I've never seen that on any other plant, and have no idea what it is, or the reason for it. It may be some kind of pseudo-roots to anchor the seedling to the ground while it punches a tap root into the dirt.


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[Ninurta]

Hemp

hemp is a touchy one. While it is legal to grow in Virginia now, since last July 1, it is still controlled at the Federal level. At the state level, there is no restriction in the law as to chemical composition, but at the Federal level the THC content has to be below a ridiculously low level for it to be legal. I selected the variety I'm trying to grow with that in mind, to keep the THC content below Federal guidelines, but to maximize the CBD content. It's the CBD I'm after anyhow, so it's all good.

Cannabis has been used by humans for thousands of years, and in all that time there has never been a recorded overdose. It's cultivation has been archaeologically documented in China something over 7,000 years ago, it has been found in graves of the Pazyryk culture (the "Ice Maiden" mummy took a supply with her to whatever heaven it was she believed in), and it has been found in Scythian grave goods on the Eurasian Steppes.

When agriculture and animal husbandry invaded Europe from the steppes and Balkans, cannabis came along with it.

Now, my own personal history with cannabis has been chequered. I grew some when I was a teenager with some success, but always a bad end. The first batch I tried was set in a sunny attic window, out of the way, but it got discovered anyhow, and I had to get rid of it. So I took it out and transplanted it in a clearing in a small copse of woods, but there was not enough sun there, and it got tall and leggy, spindly, and physically weak. I had to cut it down early due to unforeseen circumstances, and it didn't get properly cured for lack of time, and did not smoke well at all, as it was still a little too wet.

Another batch I tried, well, I was just too paranoid about my guerrilla farming getting discovered, so I kept moving it and re-transplanting it. That damaged the roots and stunted it's growth, and after a full growing season it was only 11 1/2 inches tall when it went to seed. Good smoke, but nowhere near enough of it to justify all that trouble.

I stopped smoking it when I was about 18, and haven't fooled with it since, until it became legal here, so now I try again. Wish me luck.

Last year, I tried a test batch of some seed I got in a grocery store in Kansas City. It was a commercial hemp variety from Canada, meant for eating like nuts. I test tried a few seeds, and several of them "popped", sent out young roots, but not a single one developed a stem, much less any leaves. Then I test-tried 5 of these seeds I'm trying again this year, from a  different source, of a different variety, meant to be grown, but no luck. at least one of those seeds "popped", but still no stems... so no seedlings, either. For now, I'm blaming that on the growing medium that was probably eaten up by that point with damp off fungus, so I'm hoping that trying these peat pellets as a starter medium, inside that bitty little greenhouse tray, will give better results. So far, no sprouts, but it's only been about 4 days, so none are expected yet. Hemp starts sprouting in 5 to 10 days, so maybe tomorrow, maybe later this week, maybe in a couple of weeks if it's growth-retarded for some reason.

I soaked the seeds in water for around 6 hours, until they all soaked up enough water to sink to the bottom, then took them out of the water and popped them into the peat about a quarter inch deep. We'll see how that goes.

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[Ninurta]

Pampas Grass

Pampas grass has been declared an "invasive species" in California and Texas, but I'm not in either of those places, so there is that.

The seed for this that I have came from Kansas City, Missouri. When I lived out there, one of the jobs I worked involved a half mile walk from the bus stop to the store, and all along that route, pampas grass was growing wild. It had tough stems that reached about 8 or 10 feet tall and were topped by cottony tufts of flowers and seeds. I simply snapped off a few seed heads and kept them.

I know the seeds are viable, as I put some dirt in a milk jug and just tossed in some of the seeds in at the last place I lived, and voila! In a few days, they were sprouting. In a strange turn of events, my weird ass cat somehow got the idea that they were "food", and they didn't survive the onslaught.

I have a taser now. Cats beware.

Most folks grow pampas grass for ornamentation, but I have ulterior motives. Those stems are ideal for arrow shafts and atlatl dart shafts. They are tough and springy, and I'm guessing they would be better than even cane as shaft material. I have a 2 foot section of one that I brought all the way from Kansas City, together with the seed. .Matter of fact, it came from one of the seed heads I saved. It's standing in a bucket of crossbow bolts I have near to hand. I take it out and examine it every now and then, and even now, 8 years later, it's still as tough as a hickory wythe, and still just as serviceable for an arrow shaft.

Here is an image of this year's pampas grass starter planting:



Not sprouting yet, but it's only been 4 days. I think last time I tried it, it took a week, maybe two, to sprout. We'll see how it goes. If I can find a picture of those previous sprouts, I'll come back and post it in this post. Watch this space.

As promised, here are some picture of my first attempt at growing pampas grass, from 2017 -

First, shortly after sprouting:



Next, after about a month of growth:



I did manage to get a clump of that last attempt outdoors and in the ground, but I don't think it survived, either. I'm hoping that these peat pellets will make the transplanting easier - I'll just dig a hole big enough for both the plant and pellet, and pop the whole shebang in. I have 12 pellets of pampas grass trying to start, with anywhere from 4 to 6 seeds per pellet,  so if I can get just one plant to survive in each of them, that'll be 12 clumps of pampas grass in a couple of years, and 12 or so arrow shafts in 2 to 5 years. After that, wind borne self-seeding will take over, and generations yet unborn should have decent arrow shafts years from now. If they know what to do with them.

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[Ninurta]

Quinoa

The quinoa surprised me, on several levels. First, I started it from store bought quinoa seed, meant for eating. I wasn't sure it would pop, but it seems to be doing so. And it popped fast - I just put it on the peat yesterday evening (well, the day before yesterday now) at about 5:45 PM, and it was growing root tails by the time I checked it around 2:15 PM the next day, less than 24 hours later.

Quinoa is a variety of chenopodium, grown for it's seeds mainly as an edible staple. It is one of the very few seeds that contains ALL of the amino acids necessary for humans to continue to live. Additionally, it's loaded with protein, fats, and vitamins, as well as a couple of necessary minerals. It's like a one-stop food source. As an added bonus, if you have anything like Celiac's Disease, it's gluten-free.

Chenopodium berlanderii, the ancestor of quinoa, has a long history in this immediate area. Locally, it's called "goosefoot", and is considered a weed by most folks. it is, however, edible as greens and of course the seeds. The Indians here grew it as part of their Eastern Agricultural Complex long before they had corn to grow, which was an invasive species from Mexico here. They ate the seeds in the same way other agricultural complexes ate rice and wheat. Unlike rice and wheat, and other similar grasses, the greens of the plant could also be eaten, like spinach. Goosefoot is still gathered as wild greens. Medicinally, the raw leaves were eaten to prevent intestinal parasites.

Chenopodium seeds have been found in rock shelters in Kentucky and Ohio, and in an archaeological dig at Daugherty's Cave, about 3 miles or so from where I was raised, in Virginia. They were growing and eating it here, right here, thousands of years ago, before they knew what maize even was. It is also salt tolerant, and actually leeches salts out of the ground and into the plant. When the English arrived here, chenopodium leaves were burned to ash by the Indians, and used as salt to season foods. Early English explorers made mention of that, and of the fact that Indians made "a goodly pottage" out of it, whatever that means.

Last fall, I took a trip down to the old homestead to attempt to gather seeds (primarily catnip and was hoping for some white sage from an ancient plant that used to grow there) and stumbled across a goosefoot plant growing wild right at the corner of our old coal house:



I'm wondering how that particular plant is related to the ancient seeds found 3 miles away in Daugherty's Cave.

The main difference between wild chenopodium and domesticated chenopodium is the thickness of the testa, the seed cover. In the domesticated variants, it is only about 20 micrometers or less thick, and in the wild variants, it is 40 or more micrometers thick. Once it gets out of cultivation and reverts to the wild, the testa gets thicker again in just a few generations.

As I mentioned above, The quinoa I threw on the peat was thrown at 5:45 one evening, and was growing a root tail before 24 hours had elapsed. Here is the photo of that:



So we will see where that goes.

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[Ninurta]

Now an interlude, a word about the nuts and bolts.

For the sprouting, I got some "miniature greenhouse" starter kits at Walmart.



This one holds 25 peat pellets to start 25 plants, but the one I'm using is a good bit wider, and holds 72 peat pellets. They come with a bottom tray to hold the peat pellets, the peat pellets themselves, and a clear cover for the greenhouse effect. The 25 pellet tray shown in the picture also came with an envelope of plant food that you mix into a gallon of water to feed the seedlings with. The 72 pellet tray was about 7 1/2 bucks at the local Walmart, and the 25 pellet tray was just under 6 bucks.

What you do is set the pellets in their holders in the bottom of the tray, and pour about an inch or an inch and a half of warm water into the tray. The peat pellets soak that water up like a sponge. They start out about a half inch thick, and after hydration they have expanded to about 2 1/2 or 3 inches tall.

Once the peat pellets are hydrated, you plant the seeds and put the clear cover on the top, and wait.

You may have noticed in the photos that several of the seeds are just sitting on the surface. that is how you "sew" most of this crap. In nature, there is no gardener there to cover the seeds, so they have developed mechanisms to handle getting a root in the ground from the surface. Poppies, tobacco, pampas grass, and the like are surface sewn. The seeds take it from there.

You'll also notice there are several seeds per pellet. That's an old habit. The Indians planted 3 grains per hill of corn to insure that something came up, along with dropping a fish head in for fertilizer. When I was a kid and a teenager, my folks also had me put 3 grains in per hill of corn, for the same reason, but allowed me to omit the fish head. That was pretty gracious of them, on balance. I also had to go along each row of corn periodically with a soup can that had about an inch of gasoline in it, and pick off the bugs eating the corn and drop them in the gas to kill them. I'm a prick like that.

So in this planting, I dropped in anywhere from 3 to about 6 seeds, depending on the crop being sewn. I'll thin them out later to one plant per pellet before I put them in real dirt.

Now the hemp, I planted that in about a quarter inch deep and covered it. But the rest? I just threw 'em on the peat and let nature take it's course... and it looks like it's working. I know the pampas grass will take like that, because I've done it before. Likewise the tobacco. I'm less certain about the quinoa, but time will tell.

And that's all there is to it. Not really very labor intensive at this stage of the game. No more work to do but watch for sprouts, and thin them out in a few weeks after you see which ones are the strongest and fastest growers. At that point, you thin them out to one plant per pellet. Only the strong survive.

I still have about 24 peat pellets left unused in the 72 pellet tray. I'll probably use half of those for another variety of rustica tobacco, and the other half for some red quinoa from Peru after I see if the white quinoa gets a root in the ground from the surface sewing or not. The red quinoa has a stronger taste, and it's just a matter of preference what people will eat. The nutritional value is the same for both.

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[guohua]

Very informative and educational.
Thank You @"Ninurta"

[GeauxHomeLittleD]

Way to go Ninurta! Always happy to see people growing plants!

Too early here, hard freeze and snow coming in a few days. Have some bedding plants ready to go when it warms up a bit, have them under grow lights inside right now. Getting ready to start some seeds on several things that I need to wait a while on planting. I container garden so freeze hits a little harder that plants in the ground- hazards of apartment living.

We are getting rid of our patio loveseat and coffee table to make more room for veggies this year. I got several potato grow bags and a stack of planters that fit on the patio rails to make better use of my space in addition to my usual pots, planters and hanging baskets. Will be plenty of fruits and veggies by very early summer and different ones coming in until late fall.

Suck it grocery store! I'm not paying your rent! 

[Ninurta]

Way to go Ninurta! Always happy to see people growing plants!

Too early here, hard freeze and snow coming in a few days. Have some bedding plants ready to go when it warms up a bit, have them under grow lights inside right now. Getting ready to start some seeds on several things that I need to wait a while on planting. I container garden so freeze hits a little harder that plants in the ground- hazards of apartment living.

We are getting rid of our patio loveseat and coffee table to make more room for veggies this year. I got several potato grow bags and a stack of planters that fit on the patio rails to make better use of my space in addition to my usual pots, planters and hanging baskets. Will be plenty of fruits and veggies by very early summer and different ones coming in until late fall.

Suck it grocery store! I'm not paying your rent! 

I've started these in a 72 pellet tray of peat pellets indoors. Right now, they are sitting on top of a heater gizzy in the kitchen window, indoors. The heater is one of those Amish electric heaters that simulates a fireplace, and the heat is thrown out at the bottom. Ceiling fan circulates it through the kitchen and into the living room, so sitting the tray atop the heater should give it about the right amount of heat.

Last frost here is usually around the end of April or beginning of May, so they'll be indoors until then. The Quinoa can survive a light frost. It's good down to about 27 degrees Fahrenheit, if it takes root at all.

I checked the tray a while ago, and the tobacco cotyledons are up and opening now. I planted 12 pellets with the tobacco, or so I thought, but one of them doesn't have any sprouts. Since this tobacco is some super sprouting stuff - I'd say it has at least a 98% germination rate - I'm guessing I just missed that pellet and will need to re-seed it.

Off to take more pictures now to document the grow. I claim it's for documentation, but really I've found that when I take pictures and then view them on the computer at magnification, I can pick out details that my tired old eyes can't see under their own power...

As a parting shot, here is an image of a tobacco seed found in an archaeological dig at Jamestown, the birthplace of English tobacco farming in America. it's about 400 years old, and I am amazed they found it in all that dirt - tobacco seeds are really tiny, almost like dust or small grains of sand:



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[Ninurta]

07 March 2022 update

I double checked the empty pellet that was supposed to be tobacco under magnification, and could find no sprouts nor even any seed, so I did miss that one. I reseeded it with a few of the Midewiwin tobacco seeds. I've got about 4 grams of those seeds, which works out to about 10,000 seeds, so I've no shortage of them. Once those pop, I'm considering seeding a few pellets with the "Thousand year Old Tobacco". I'll tell more about it when I seed the pellets.

Here is where the tobacco sprouts have got to in the last 24 hours or so - there is an image of where they were yesterday in a post above, this image:



They've stood up and greened up.

The quinoa popped a root out fast, but they seem to be slowing down. Still sending out roots, but I'm waiting now to see if any of those roots find dirt:



Once I see how those are going to do, whether they find dirt from the surface or not, I'll be better armed to know how to seed the next 12 pellets with Red Quinoa from Peru.



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[Minstrel]

Outstanding topic/thread. Thanks for your details, explanations, time and photos.

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

Pampas Grass

Pampas grass has been declared an "invasive species" in California and Texas, but I'm not in either of those places, so there is that.

The seed for this that I have came from Kansas City, Missouri. When I lived out there, one of the jobs I worked involved a half mile walk from the bus stop to the store, and all along that route, pampas grass was growing wild. It had tough stems that reached about 8 or 10 feet tall and were topped by cottony tufts of flowers and seeds. I simply snapped off a few seed heads and kept them.

I know the seeds are viable, as I put some dirt in a milk jug and just tossed in some of the seeds in at the last place I lived, and voila! In a few days, they were sprouting. In a strange turn of events, my weird ass cat somehow got the idea that they were "food", and they didn't survive the onslaught.

I have a taser now. Cats beware.

Most folks grow pampas grass for ornamentation, but I have ulterior motives. Those stems are ideal for arrow shafts and atlatl dart shafts. They are tough and springy, and I'm guessing they would be better than even cane as shaft material. I have a 2 foot section of one that I brought all the way from Kansas City, together with the seed. .Matter of fact, it came from one of the seed heads I saved. It's standing in a bucket of crossbow bolts I have near to hand. I take it out and examine it every now and then, and even now, 8 years later, it's still as tough as a hickory wythe, and still just as serviceable for an arrow shaft.

Here is an image of this year's pampas grass starter planting:



Not sprouting yet, but it's only been 4 days. I think last time I tried it, it took a week, maybe two, to sprout. We'll see how it goes. If I can find a picture of those previous sprouts, I'll come back and post it in this post. Watch this space.

As promised, here are some picture of my first attempt at growing pampas grass, from 2017 -

First, shortly after sprouting:



Next, after about a month of growth:



I did manage to get a clump of that last attempt outdoors and in the ground, but I don't think it survived, either. I'm hoping that these peat pellets will make the transplanting easier - I'll just dig a hole big enough for both the plant and pellet, and pop the whole shebang in. I have 12 pellets of pampas grass trying to start, with anywhere from 4 to 6 seeds per pellet,  so if I can get just one plant to survive in each of them, that'll be 12 clumps of pampas grass in a couple of years, and 12 or so arrow shafts in 2 to 5 years. After that, wind borne self-seeding will take over, and generations yet unborn should have decent arrow shafts years from now. If they know what to do with them.

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Thank you. I didn't know about this use for it, till now. It has just been an invasive nuisance. Now I will see it with a different set of eyes.

I have a small amount of organic quinoa in my pantry. I am going to give it a go to see if it will grow anything. I too have sporadic luck when it comes to plants.

I just planted a Ponderosa lemon tree last week, it was a gift given to me in November. It was too cold to put it in the ground back then. It grew three giant sized lemons that tasted great! It was ready to go into the ground last week when I pulled off the last lemon. It is budding like crazy now, so I am hoping it will do well.

The lemons are huge. They are the size of Pomelos.

Good luck on your garden.

[VioletDove]

@"Ninurta", those seedlings look like they are growing nicely. I use the pellets when I’m starting seeds too. It really seems like the plants aren’t as bothered by transplanting as they are when I use the trays that hold soil.


I’m glad you posted this, I learned some stuff I didn’t know before.

[Ninurta]

Thank you. I didn't know about this use for it, till now. It has just been an invasive nuisance. Now I will see it with a different set of eyes.

I'm glad it didn't grow here when I was growing up - it would have been hell on wheels for a switch!

The stems are already fairly straight, but they can all use straightening before making arrow shafts out of them, especially at the nodes of the stem. It has a hard outer tube like cane or bamboo, but instead of being hollow like those, the interior is filled with some sort of fibrous material. I straighten it by warming it where it needs to be straightened, then bending it straight and holding it there until it cools. It's a little time consuming, but anytime one makes arrow shafts out of natural materials instead of store bought dowel rods, it's going to take a little longer for the finished product.

Then I scrape the nodes down until they are fairly smooth and even. Nothing like having a rough node scrape a knuckle at 250 feet per second to spoil your day, so they have to be smoothed. The nock end is cut 1/4 to 1/2 inch from a node to give the nock increased strength and help prevent it from splitting upon firing. The sinew you use to tie the feathers on gives additional strengthening to the nock. Same for the point end, but that section is cut a little longer from the node to give the arrowhead more support.

The initial English settlers said that the arrows of the coastal and piedmont indians were "about an ell long", which is 45 inches, quite a bit longer than an English clothyard arrow, which in turn was longer than the current archery tackle, which is about 30 inches or so long in most cases. With an arrow that much longer, one has to use lighter, stronger materials, The pampas grass stems fit that bill among natural materials. It's even lighter than cane, but about the same strength.

For atlatl darts, the shafts are anywhere from 4 to 5 feet long, and also have to be light with the addition of springiness - it's that springiness in the shaft that actually propels the dart, because as you fling it forward, it bends and compresses the shaft storing energy, then the shaft "jumps" from the thrower at the end of the throw and propels forward using that stored energy. pampas grass again fill the bill.

I have a small amount of organic quinoa in my pantry. I am going to give it a go to see if it will grow anything. I too have sporadic luck when it comes to plants.

I just planted a Ponderosa lemon tree last week, it was a gift given to me in November. It was too cold to put it in the ground back then. It grew three giant sized lemons that tasted great! It was ready to go into the ground last week when I pulled off the last lemon. It is budding like crazy now, so I am hoping it will do well.

The lemons are huge. They are the size of Pomelos.

Good luck on your garden.

You might want to wait a few days until we see what this quinoa is going to do, and whether the surface sewing was the right move to make. I used "Great Value" organic white quinoa that came from Peru by way of Walmart. I'm going to wait to see what it does before I try the red quinoa, and use any information I gather from the white to improve the chances with the red.

I have noticed in the past couple of days that the quinoa seems to be standing itself on edge. I don't really know why - I don't think it is roots getting into the ground and standing it up on edge, but I could be wrong about that.

If we have any success with the quinoa, if any of it sprouts and grows, there should be a ton of seed from that to save for next year of known viability, and next year's crop would then be a lot bigger.

One thing to know about the quinoa is that when it grows and is harvested, the seeds are coated by the plant with saponins to discourage birds and bugs from eating it. The quinoa you get at the grocery store has already had the saponins removed, because they make it bitter and soapy. In order to use what you grow yourself, you have to rinse it 4 or five times in clear water, until the water pours off without any foam. You can eat it without rinsing, but it won't be a pleasant taste.

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[Ninurta]

@"Ninurta", those seedlings look like they are growing nicely. I use the pellets when I’m starting seeds too. It really seems like the plants aren’t as bothered by transplanting as they are when I use the trays that hold soil.


I’m glad you posted this, I learned some stuff I didn’t know before.

They were getting a little leggy from sitting in the window, so I set the tray outside today in the sun on the deck for a few hours. It was about 58 degrees here today. so a little outdoor time wouldn't hurt them.

I initially went to the store looking for the regular starter trays to put potting soil in, but when I stumbled across these, they looked like they were just what the doctor ordered and all the nurses prayed for, so I got them as well as the regular celled starter trays. The other ones are just sitting there unused, staring at me accusingly for not employing them in their only reason to be.

I planted another variety of rustica tobacco today, will make a post about that next.

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[Ninurta]

Nicotiana rustica tobacco, like most domesticated plants, has different varieties or cultivars. That's because each tribe or culture area developed their own brand of it over time, in isolation from other tribes and culture areas. So mutations and morpholigical changes accumulated over time until what they had was a different variety from what other folks had.

That's different than the difference between nicotiana rustica and nicotiana tabacum, or "Virginia tobacco", which are actually different species.

So the first tobacco I planted this year was Midewiwin, named for the Midewiwin Society of the Great Lakes Algonquian tribes - Ojibwe, Miami, Shawnee, Delaware, etc. from Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. I've got about 4 grams of those seeds, about 10,000 seeds or thereabouts.

While I was seed shopping, I ran across another variety called "1000 Year Old Tobacco". The story on the internet is that it came from plants grown from ancient seeds found in a clay pot in an archaeological dig. Try as I might, I could find no confirmation of that tale, but it's a nice story. There just isn't any confirmation in any of the science literature I could find that confirmed the story, so it's an apocryphal tale, an internet story, and nothing more. Just a good story to sell seeds.

The description of the plant, however, matched exactly the description of Cherokee Sacred Tobacco, the tobacco grown and used by the Cherokees, an Iroquioan tribe of western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. It's a shorter plant than the Midewiwin, with slightly smaller leaves of a little different shape from the leaves of the Midewiwin, more round and blunt. So I'm going on the theory that it's really Cherokee Sacred Tobacco that has just been rebranded for sales purposes, unless I can ever find confirmation otherwise.

Both types have trumpet shaped greenish yellow blooms, common to all varieties of rustica, and distinct from Virginia tobacco, which usually has pink blossoms.

So I seeded 12 of the remaining 24 peat plugs with that tobacco at around 5:30 this afternoon. I only got a gram of those seeds, so around 2500 seeds. The way I sew tobacco is to dump a small pile of seeds onto a white piece of paper so I can see them, moisten a finger and poke it into the pile. Some of the seeds stick to the finger, and then I hold it over the peat plug and rub a thumb on the fingertip to drop the seeds onto the peat plug. That's why the tobacco seeds are randomly distributed on the plugs. It's not an exact science. Then, when I'm finished, I fold the paper and dump the remaining seeds back into the seed packet.

Then I mist the top of the peat to wet the seeds. You have to mist them rather than spray or pour water on, because the seeds are so tiny you run the risk of washing them right off of the peat plugs.

This is one of the seeded peat plugs. see if you can pick out the seeds - they're almost the same color as the peat :



This is the Midewiwin seedlings today, day 5 since I seeded the peat:



And, as a bonus, I think this might be a sprouting poppy:



The poppy seeds and tobacco seeds are just about the same size, so tiny. I can't be sure it's a poppy, since those are sewn in the Great Outdoors, and it could equally be a sprout for a wind blown seed of any of the 130 or so different kinds of weeds growing in this immediate area. Only time will tell, I reckon. Or maybe not. We're supposed to get more snow at the end of the week, and that might very well kill it off.

Or it might not.

Only time will tell.

ETA: And the Easter Lillies are already blooming:



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[Ninurta]

9 March 2022

First challenge. Checking the tray this morning, I noticed one of the quinoa seeds wearing a fur coat of mold. So I immediately removed it from the tray to quarantine it, and hosed it down with the cinnamon water. The fur immediately disappeared, but that plug is staying in quarantine to protect the the other plants in the tray, and to see if the fur coat returns or if the cinnamon water was effective at eradicating it.

The peat plug and the associated seeds are now residing in a single, stand alone pudding cup with a ziplock back inverted over that to keep the greenhouse effect going. It's isolated from the tray with the (so far) healthy seedlings in it.

However, if the quinoa is molding, then I have less hope that it is going to sprout. With any luck, it was just that one seed and I caught it in time before the mold could spore and infect other plugs.

Still no sprouts in the hemp plugs. We are within the time range that they ought to be sprouting, so if there are still none in the next 4 days, then the chances drastically diminish thereafter. If there are still none by the 3rd of April, then the chances are practically zero that it will ever sprout. I'll be mighty pissed if that carefully sourced seed turns out to be all duds. I planted 36 of them to insure there were enough to thin out to 4 plants, and if NONE of those 36 sprout, then I can only presume the entire batch of seed is dead.

Still no activity in the pampas grass plugs, either, but I'm not sure of the time range needed for sprouts.

I expect I may see some action in the "1000 Year Old" rustica tobacco in the next 3 to 5 days.

Later, I plan to get some basil, rosemary, and spearmint plants to set outdoors, but that is still a month and a half off, to defeat the last frost of the season here. No point in getting them any sooner. Snow and falling temperatures is expected here at the end of this week. Furthermore, I may ake another trip down to the old homestead and grub up some already started catnip and peppermint after the last frost is past, to make sure the plants I get are hardy enough to handle it.

ETA: I found this page regading quinoa growing. according to that page, quinoa sprouts 4-10 days from planting, and today is the 4th day, so it ought to start standing up some time in the next week. However, the page also says to plant it 1/4 inch deep, so I may have erred in the planting.


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[ABNARTY]

Awesomeness Amigo!!! 

I love to grow my own stuff. It tastes way better and provides a really cool sense of independence. 

I do not drink or smoke but if I did, I would probably grow/make my own. Why not? The taxes on that stuff is insane when you buy it. 

Now... quinoa. Good gravy, I have been pulling that "weed" out for years. I did not know that plant was the source of quinoa. I need to re-evaluate. 

I will send pics of my stuff soon. Currently, everything is under the snow. Not very helpful.

[Ninurta]

Awesomeness Amigo!!! 

I love to grow my own stuff. It tastes way better and provides a really cool sense of independence. 

I do not drink or smoke but if I did, I would probably grow/make my own. Why not? The taxes on that stuff is insane when you buy it. 

Now... quinoa. Good gravy, I have been pulling that "weed" out for years. I did not know that plant was the source of quinoa. I need to re-evaluate. 

I will send pics of my stuff soon. Currently, everything is under the snow. Not very helpful.

My beer has been price-increasing by about a dollar a week for the last 6 weeks. When Grace told me that it went up again today, I told her I need to get the stuff to make my own batches.

The tobacco is not necessarily for smoking. Sure, you can smoke it, but that stuff will knock you on your ass. It ain't your normal cigarette tobacco. I'm growing it for some spook related stuff, and because it has a higher than normal nicotine content - 3X to 9X higher - I figured it would be good to extract the nicotine from to make my own vape juice. The Controllers are making vape related product impossible or very, very expensive to get ahold of. We've been making our own vape juice for a couple years now, but I figured it was about time to get a local source for the nicotine.

Additionally, I have some tribal friends who have a hard time getting genuine sacred tobacco, and have to settle for smoking tobacco. With any luck, I can fix that for them. I'm currently researching how to cure sacred tobacco, because the Indians did it differently than white folks do.

Goosefoot isn't the source of quinoa, but it is the plant ancestral to the quinoa plant. It was grown for the same purpose as quinoa bu the Indians here, and the seed can be used the same. The greens can be eaten. if eaten raw, they suppress and prevent intestinal parasites, and are loaded with vitamins and iron like spinach. A word of caution, though - if one is prone to kidney stones, goosefoot greens can exacerbate that condition.

Goosefoot is chenopodium berlanderi, and quinoa is chenopodium quinoa. They superficially look the same, and can both be used the same, but at a deeper level they are just a wee bit different from one another. I believe one of the differences is that goosefoot seeds are marginally smaller than quinoa, and the seed coat is about twice as thick. They both still eat the same, though.

There is another variant of chenopodium that has been naturalized to north America. It is native to Europe, and is sometimes hard to tell from berlanderi. That species is chenopodium album, also known as lamb's quarters. It can be eaten leaf and seed the same as the other kinds, so any differences may be purely academic.

A few different sorts are grown and consumed in Mexico. Chenopodium nuttiallae I think is the name for it. They have 2 different cultivars for different uses - one for greens, one for seeds, and the last I think the entire seed head is eaten like broccoli.

I used to go out and gather wild greens every spring - goosefoot, field cress, a couple different kinds of mint, poke weed, that sort of thing. It's supposed to be good for the blood after a hard winter, kind of like sassafras tea is.

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[Ninurta]

10 March 2022

The re-seed of the peat plug I missed with Midewiwin tobacco is sprouting and starting to send out those tiny hair roots preparatory to standing up. The "1000 year Old" tobacco, A.K.A. probable Cherokee tobacco, is just starting to sprout. You can just see the seed cases cracking and the very tip of the root staring out of them.

Still not really any visible activity in any of the rest of the stuff.  It's starting to make me fidget.

Found another tiny patch of what was probably mold in association with a stray quinoa seed. Hosed it down with the cinnamon water. The isolated plug I hosed down still isn't showing any more mold.

Winter storm watch starting tomorrow evening through Saturday. That might be a little rough on stuff I have in the ground outside. But that stuff has to have cold weather to sprout, so we'll see.

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