Growing Tobacco

[reliquary]

I  store a couple of types of tobacco seeds in my Doomsday Box, thinking that they might be moderately useful in an EOTW situation.  With more time on my hands than usual this spring, I tried germinating and growing some.  Of about 10 that germinated, only one survived to the height of about 2" in the grow-pots, and this is what it looks like, in the ground, at 12 weeks.  And, of course, a tobacco hornworm was nibbling on it one morning earlier this week.  Oh, well....

[reliquary]

For some reason, the photo didn't post in the OP. 

[hillbill]

i remember my dad talking about growing tobacco. he was raised in wisconsin.he is 80 now. he said every farm had a little patch of it. he said the size of the patch was determined by how many kids yu had to work it.from what he said it was very labor intensive. seems like yu had to tend it certain ways almost constantly, weeding and pulling suckers and bugs off.then the leaves would ripen at different times and had to be harvested by hand and hung up to dry.seems like they started them in beds and transplanted them to the field also but i cud be wrong.he said it did bring good money in a good year and lot of folks used it to pay the taxes and such.

[hillbill]

I  store a couple of types of tobacco seeds in my Doomsday Box, thinking that they might be moderately useful in an EOTW situation.  With more time on my hands than usual this spring, I tried germinating and growing some.  Of about 10 that germinated, only one survived to the height of about 2" in the grow-pots, and this is what it looks like, in the ground, at 12 weeks.  And, of course, a tobacco hornworm was nibbling on it one morning earlier this week.  Oh, well....

what i find funny is, i dont know where yu live but yu may have the only tobacco in a sqaure mile and the hornworm still found it and made lunch out of it?thats got to make yu feel like a lucky guy?

[reliquary]

I'm pushing 70, and can remember my dad & others growing the stuff for their own use, here in East TX.  I was stationed on the East Coast several times and watched a lot of it being grown there, too...it's labor intensive in large quantities.  Managed to quit the stuff a long time ago, but thought it might be good barter material, and if things keep going like they are now, there may be a market for it again.
 
The hornworms attack tomatoes and moonflowers (datura varieties) as well as tobacco plants; the tomato and tobacco hornworms are hard to tell apart, actually.  I've seen them feed on  datura leaves most of the day...they get "buzzed" on the alkaloids, fall off, twitch a while, sleep a while, and then go back to nibbling...maybe every species has its "hippies"...   

[briarpatch]

Every man should have to work a quarter acre of tobacco sometime in his life. From the time it is planted in the field from the beds, hand suckered, topped, cut and put on a tobacco stick to dry in the field then taken to barn and hung on tiers until the night you are rushed to the barn when the tobacco comes in (case) as it is called, to be graded and hand tied and Finaly packed in the baskets for market it is all work.

[keith44]

The last we grew all had to be baled, even what was tied in hands.  And I agree, but also think that every teenager should spend a minimum of two years on a working self sufficient farm.  Gardening, haying, feeding live stock, and tending tobacco.  There just ain't time left for mischief after all that. Especially if the place is heated with wood. 

[reliquary]

I did most of that, except for the tobacco, but add in two broiler houses and it evens out.  And still found time to get into a little mischief.   

[charles p]

I grew up in Eastern NC.  I have worked in my share of tobacco fields.  I also worked for a tobacco buying company on the GA/FLA auction markets in the late 60's.  Douglas GA.  Hottest place I have ever stayed. the longest hours I have ever worked, the most fun I ever had, and the prettiest girls I've ever dated.  I used to take a company straight truck with canvas sides, to pick up my date on Sat. night.  Took that big old truck to drive in restuarants, and everywhere else.  Dated the reigning Miss GA in that company truck.  Those were the days.  Kids today will never believe it.  Life back then was simple and fun. 

[reliquary]

Amen to the simple & more fun part...I think it was mostly because we had to "make our own fun", rather than expect to be electronically entertained.  I never could get the "cow" smell out of our old farm truck and had a lot of girls refuse to go out with me because of that.  Luckily I found one who had to work about as hard as I did and we had a great time helping each other grow up.  She stayed in the country and I went off to the big city to go to college...

[powderman]

Every man should have to work a quarter acre of tobacco sometime in his life. From the time it is planted in the field from the beds, hand suckered, topped, cut and put on a tobacco stick to dry in the field then taken to barn and hung on tiers until the night you are rushed to the barn when the tobacco comes in (case) as it is called, to be graded and hand tied and Finaly packed in the baskets for market it is all work.

 
AMEN to that. Growing up, farm kids rarely got into any real trouble. Learning a hard work ethic at a young age helps tremendously in making a useful productive citizen out of anybody. Farm and small town kids were always the hardest workers and best behaved. Most of the summer we went to a local gas station where farmers would come looking for help, mostly hay. Most of us did a lot of farm work. I don't miss the work, but I do miss those good ol days. POWDERMAN. 

[keith44]

My grandfather turns 92 this October, Dad will be 71 in November, so I am back to helping out part time with the hay and cattle.  Grain crops were stopped when my grand father turned 75, and the tobacco was stopped when they reduced everybody's base.  (back around '88 if I remember correctly)

[reliquary]

We never grew the stuff as a cash crop, so we weren't on a quota.  Dad and "unk" had us kids lay out limbs, brush, stalks,  burnable trash, etc in a line where the tobacco was to be planted.  They'd burn all that in the winter and use the row as the base for the transplants in the spring.  I don't think they ever had over 30-40 plants mature...none of us kids can remember that well...there was a log smokehouse-storehouse that they were cured in.  Dad mostly made the chewing stuff and "unk" had a gadget that would shred his for a ready-roll machine.
 
 

[hillbill]

We never grew the stuff as a cash crop, so we weren't on a quota.  Dad and "unk" had us kids lay out limbs, brush, stalks,  burnable trash, etc in a line where the tobacco was to be planted.  They'd burn all that in the winter and use the row as the base for the transplants in the spring.  I don't think they ever had over 30-40 plants mature...none of us kids can remember that well...there was a log smokehouse-storehouse that they were cured in.  Dad mostly made the chewing stuff and "unk" had a gadget that would shred his for a ready-roll machine.

anybody that cud chew or smoke raw tobacco must of been a tuff old fart.i remember the old twist chewing tobacco, dang it was stout!

[reliquary]

They were tough old boys.  Not many around like that any more. 
 
Dad had some boxes made of rough-sawed hardwood planks, maybe 2-3" high and a foot or so square, open on top-planked on bottom.  He'd trim the leaves, layer them in the box, drizzle molasses/cane syrup/honey...whatever he had..on them, another layer, another drizzle, until the boxes were full.  Then he had a wooden lid that went on top, with something to weigh it down until it compressed.  After some time, he'd cut out plugs and store them in a Mason jar.  Ghastly stuff; molasses made it even worse.  The honey made it...not good...but a little more tolerable.

[keith44]

We never grew the stuff as a cash crop, so we weren't on a quota.  Dad and "unk" had us kids lay out limbs, brush, stalks,  burnable trash, etc in a line where the tobacco was to be planted.  They'd burn all that in the winter and use the row as the base for the transplants in the spring.  I don't think they ever had over 30-40 plants mature...none of us kids can remember that well...there was a log smokehouse-storehouse that they were cured in.  Dad mostly made the chewing stuff and "unk" had a gadget that would shred his for a ready-roll machine.

anybody that cud chew or smoke raw tobacco must of been a tuff old fart.i remember the old twist chewing tobacco, dang it was stout!

been chewin' twist tobacco for nearly 30 years.  It ain't bad if it's cured right, but green and fresh off the stalk when hanging it in the barn is rough!!

[reliquary]

The leaves they used were kinda-sorta cured, IIRC.  My older siblings think they used last year's leaves for this year's product, so they were always a year behind, but I'm not sure about that. 

[reliquary]

This is the evil weed at roughly 15 weeks.  It has taken off and seems to double in size every week.  The tape is open to 24".

[SHOOTALL]

If you want to get more plants in a seed bed you might consider burning the bed first. When we made a plant bed for tobacco we always covered it with hay and a couple old tires and burned it for about half a day . It killed things that might hurt the plants like blue mold it also probly killed cut worms etc. You can dust the plants to keep bugs off or spray with chemicals or do like the old timmers did train turkeys to eat the tobacco worms off.

[reliquary]

Thanks.  I used the dirt & debris from under a "burn pile" to put in this raised bed.  No turkeys around except for one obnoxious neighbor...