Tobacco has been in the ground for about three weeks now. Bugs got some. I ended up planting 32 seedlings. Four each of Yellow Leaf, Monte Calme Yellow, Golden Burley, Piloto Cubano, Connecticut Broadleaf, Big Gem, and eight of Moldovan 456, just cause I had a good feeling about that one from the very few pics I have seen of it. And in fact, the 456 was the most aggressive in germination and early growth, and most bug resistant, followed by the Connecticut Broadleaf. My selection was very burley heavy, and my objective is to end up with lots of nice big yellow to light tan wrapper leaves. Only the Piloto is really a filler variety, because nearly all of last year's crop is good pretty much only as filler. So next year it will probably be just one wrapper variety and one filler variety, and only about 10 plants of each.
Other stuff planted: three varieties of Jalapeños, red, orange, and yellow bell peppers, celery, carrots, (a short French variety) 1015 onions, bok choy, radishes, cilantro and other herbs, two types of broccoli, Golden Acre cabbage, several types of lettuce, okra of course, sunflowers, Boxcar Willie tomatoes, swiss chard, and other stuff. With the warmer temps of the last two weeks, everything has exploded with growth, particularly the carrots interplanted with the onions. It is a jungle in there. A lot of stuff languished until nighttime temps were up in the 70's and them wham, look out. I will be setting up soaker hoses on the main rows, and next year I will probably use landscape cloth to hold the weeds down. So far we have enjoyed a lot of radishes and romaine in salad, and a few tiny carrots that I had to thin out to get some sun on some pepper plants. We also had a lot of broccoli that survived the winter and came back with some nice big side shoot heads. Let's see... green onions, too, and lots of cilantro. So here it is first half of March and we are already eating from the garden, and I have even rolled and smoked a stogie from last year's tobacco crop. We are still eating on last year's okra that I cut, seal-a-mealed, and froze.
The vacuum sealer has definitely paid for itself.I had to harvest a lot of two foot tall cilantro that was starting to bolt, and I bundled half fist size portions into sealed bags and froze them. I have also successfully prepped and froze celery and onions, and of course the okra. When you remove all of the air and freeze within an hour of harvest, you can get very good results. I may set up a brine tank for quick freezing later this year but really, stuff frozen in the sous vide bags retains all of it's flavor and color, and most of its texture. So yeah, the chest freezer will also pay for itself this year.
Broccoli and lettuce and some other cool weather crops are really hard to grow here in New Orleans, especially in the summer, but much of that I planted in the back bed, against the neighbor's 8 foot high board fence, which shades everything in the afternoon. Additionally I planted the okra in a row along that fence, and on the east edge of that bed I planted a row of sunflowers. Both of those plants cast a lot of shade and usually top over 8 feet. With mulch, soaker hose, and shade, I hope to be harvesting even the lettuce through all except mid july through the end of august. The broccoli that Mrs. Monster planted last year survived and grew during the summer under partial shade, just didn't bear well until winter, so I am not worried about the broc. Okra of course is right at home in our climate, as are the peppers. We use more of those two veggies than anything else except onions.
I learned my lesson last year. The tobacco will be getting about 10 hours sunlight out of every 12 of daylight, and I will stake every plant, and sucker aggressively. I really want to see some nice looking plants with lots of big leaves. With so few plants I can do a black light patrol every evening and keep the worms in check. I haven't used any pesticides so far and cutworms I think got the Sun King broccoli. The Castle Dome seems to fight off the bugs better. I may come out with some diatomaceous earth and some sevin dust next week. I have seen a few snails and I think the diatoms will discourage them. and sevin dust isn't particularly toxic. Thinking about BT and ladybugs, too.
Bee activity has been heavy. The bolted cilantro and bolted bok choy from last year had a huge bee following, and I started feeding them. Hopefully I will get some good pollination action this year.
Pics in a couple of weeks.
