Saturday, June 26, 2010

garden 2010- tobacco update

 The tobacco  has finally started growing! It has sure taken its sweet old time in establishing itself and starting  its growth spurt. This morning the manthing and I spent three full hours down there weeding, hilling and running the tiller between the rows for what will be the last time. The true work of growing tobacco is set to begin now with topping, suckering  and worm picking but that ain't my job. From here on out  the tomatoes are my job and tobacco is the manthing's, this is  so we do not risk losing the tomatoes with tobacco mosaic. Tobacco is truly a labor intensive crop, I could not imagine trying to be a small farmer trying to make a living growing tobacco years ago.
 Many of the plants are now knee high but all that are planted are growing well, FINALLY! My direct seeded plants are still too small to detect so I can not give an up date on them. I still have another 40 or so plants that are in the original starter flats that will need to be planted in the next week or two as well. I did not bother to transplant them into individual grow cups as they seemed to do better in the flats this year. The volunteer plants seem to be doing well too although a couple got weedwacked  this last week. Just one of the risks when you are a volunteer plant growing where you were not planted last year.

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