Lizard habitat you say? Is it cozy, plenty of rocks? How about bugs, got a good supply? What about cats? We aint puttin up with no damn cats. Ya hear me boy? No Cats!
I grew up killing rabbits, chickens, turkeys, and other small critters to eat. When my mother said "one of you kids go get me a chicken for supper" she didn't mean, go the store. I've never killed an animal like a rabbit up close, they are shot from a distance and best case shot just once, through the head with a 22 rifle, not a shot gun. Nobody wants to spit out buck shot at the table. Chickens are caught and after a bit of calming down head chopped off with one clean stroke of a hatchet. Turkeys are special, they get about a tablespoon of whiskey, which they like quite a bit and then their head removed with a hatchet or corn knife.
The idea of using some kind of gas or anything other than fast bloody violence, preferably by surprise is totally alien to me. On top of stopping the heart completely while the body is still full of blood (yuck), it seems premeditated and murderous and most of all disrespectful. Like, I'm going to kill you and eat you, I just don't want to offend my sensibilities while I do it.
Well, I can't really tell what's going on with the beavers. They have this big pile of stuff in the middle of their pond, and I think maybe that's where they live but it's obviously not what's holding back the water, so I conclude another structure, just barely visible behind the trees is doing that. The pile in the middle was still visible during the flooding so it must have floated but must also have taken some damage because they are very actively pushing more sticks and stuff up on it. But they are also pulling stuff out of it and dragging it someplace out of view.
I don't really know how many beavers there are, the most I've seen at one time is five. I think there were just two Indian Creek beavers before the flood, so I am guessing that three Ohio River beavers are trying to move in. Altercations between two of the beavers, if you want to call it that, are frequent but I'm not sure if it is the same two beavers. Also, at the risk of sounding culturally insensitive I can't tell the Indian Creek beavers and the Ohio River beavers apart. They really do all look alike, and there is no real indication of who is putting stuff on the pile and who's pulling it out or what the ones pulling it out are doing with it.
During the aforementioned altercations they mostly just get up on their back legs and using that paddle like appendage that sticks out their back sides as support they just try to push each other around, very much like sumo wrestlers. Sometimes they lose their grip on one another and the shoving match devolves into a slap fight. In the water they mostly just go around each other in circles, occasionally disappearing beneath the surface for a bit and then popping back up somewhere else. Sometimes they seem to think "screw this" and just go back to moving stuff around as if nothing had happened.
I'm not sure I'll ever really know the whole story of the beavers. Cars roar by their pond all the time and they don't seem to care but I can tell they take notice when I actually stop to watch. Just getting out of the truck can send them slapping the water with their aft appendage and disappearing under the water, and they don't come back in any reasonable amount of time. If all I do is roll down the window, they give me the beaver version of the stink eye. I can't actually see the eye, but I can feel it. But then after a while, they just go back to pushing stuff around, still getting a better view by approaching closer, is probably out.
There is a spot up the road where, when the mud dries up some, I think I can drag my kayak down the bank and access their pond. Maybe I can sneak up on them. Of course, they might just go under the water and hide, or maybe they would come over and push me around and slap me, and I wouldn't want that, they look pretty big.
The Indian Creek Beavers don't live in Indian Creek, they live in a flat spot beside it with a little ditch running through, which they have worked diligently the last few years to turn into a nice little pond of approximately five acres. Thier nice little settlement happens to be about a 1/4 mile from the mouth of Indian Creek where it enters the Ohio River.
The Ohio River beavers, despite FEMA flood plain regulations, live in elaborate structures, attached to the tops of toppled trees that extend into the water. These tree top beaver condominiums rise and fall vertically with changes in the pool elevation. A remarkably durable and ingenious building technique but it has its limits.
Recently a heavy amount of rain served to raise the level of Indian Creek, causing it to inundate the home of the Indian Creek beavers, but they didn't seem to mind. Next however the level of the water in the Ohio River was raised sufficiently and with some velocity of flow the structural tolerance of the Ohio River beaver's constructions, was exceeded.
So, it appears the Ohio River beavers, perhaps having been denied FEMA reimbursement, rather than rebuilding, just decided to move in next door with the Indian Creek beavers. At first the Indian Creek beavers seemed fine with this until the water in Indian Creek receded, restoring their pond from five hundred acres back to its normal five. So now it appears, the honeymoon is over. Further observation is required.
Trace Oswald wrote:I have 32 chickens that free range. I have friends that have guineas. I know people that encourage possums to live on their land to help control ticks. In my experience, the best thing for controlling ticks is mowing. I don't believe you are going to find any animal that has any notable effect on ticks whatsoever.
Unfortunately, I have to agree. All those animals may eat some ticks, maybe a lot of ticks, but from what I can see, it amounts to nothing more than a drop in the bucket.
Jeff Marchand wrote:Hasn't been too bad for me. Day time lows of minus 8c but probably -25C with windchill. I keep my cattle outside . Have done so for years no issues as long as they have lots of hay to eat.
Yesterday was kinda scary for me. I heat with wood with non air tight stove. I always have excellent draft in my chimney. But the high winds I had here acted like a bellows. Stove damper was fully closed but you would never know it. Stove was glowing red! The cement floor it sits on burned my feet! Wood I had brought in to dry 2 feet away was scorched! I nearly burn house down.
Hundreds of miles south of you, on the first day we had a daytime high of -24C, and windchill of -40C. An actual temperature of zero C isn't predicted for another day or two, but it was -8 yesterday with sunshine and felt great! Right now, at 8:00 AM it's -11C and no wind. I'm being optimistic and thinking we might see zero today.
I have a vegetable breeding project ongoing that in the last few years has shrugged off brief periods of -10C. Jury is still out on how it handled -24C but with some snow cover I'm hopeful some survived.
Wood stoves can go a little screwy in very cold temps with strong wind, especially with shifting direction and gusts.
-14 F, here two mornings ago and 50 MPH wind gusts, eek just did the conversion that's -22.5 C. It was 45 F at bedtime the night before, so a drop of almost fifty degrees overnight. At my sister's house in Denver, it fell almost seventy degrees in just a couple of hours. They were back to nearly 50 F yesterday; we were still just barely above zero.
We are sitting at 4 F above zero this morning and the wind has calmed down, great improvement. Those temperatures are not common here but also not unheard of. The freaky part is how fast it changed.
There is a web site I watch that renders the data from NASA satellites. EarthNullSchool
On the morning when we were at -14 part of the western Arctic Ocean were above freezing. The jet stream went screwy and shoved all the super cold air from up there down over North America. Right now, we are warmer than Iceland, over the water just north of Iceland is warmer still.
I agree, she will be fine. I'd probably throw an old pillow or something in the doghouse for her to snuggle in if she wants. Maybe give her a good supper and have fresh water nearby. She might settle in, or she might have already made her own accommodations and not use any of it.
I have some I don't do anything with but walk on it once in a while. A lot of it is very difficult, as in hold onto something while traversing it, cause if you fall down, you might not stop till you hit the creek at the bottom. But the trees use it, the coons, the possums, the deer, the coyotes, the owls and the turkeys all use it. Difficult and "unused" in fact to many it might be considered "unusable", I like it that way.
I have quite a few seed grown apples. I also have common nursery grown apple trees, like Granny Smith and Honeycrisp and some of my seed grown trees came from them. All of the nursery types get terrible leaf diseases and rarely make an apple, even those advertised as disease resistant. Most of the seed grown trees don't get the diseases at all. I can't understand that as planting some apple seeds isn't exactly breeding, it's not like they have gone through generations of adaptation.
My only guess is since they are on their own roots and planted in place, those roots have never been disturbed, although I can't figure how that would protect them from disease. I wonder also if younger trees are just more resistant for some reason.
I like it as stew meat, but my favorite is jerky. Marinade in tomato juice, fresh rosemary, fresh garlic, balsamic vinegar and salt, at least overnight, a couple of days is better. Dehydrate and smoke *don't cook over hickory, oak or apple. yum
Mike Haasl wrote:
One other thought is to put a QR code on the signs as well. Any ideas of how to do that and where to send the QR link?
That's interesting, you would have to put some sort of web presence, a site, a blog or how about a forum topic on Permies, specific to the plant? May be with photos and other info about the plant and lock it so it just stays as a static information page. QR codes are easy, there are lots of generators you can download.
I'm in SE Indiana and we don't have large wildfires, well, we haven't historically had large wildfires, but I fear that could change if the intensity of our droughts continues to deepen. If I had opportunity to build a new house it would have zero combustible material on its exterior. Steel reinforced concrete or masonry or at very least metal siding and a metal roof. All ventilation spots like under soffits would be well sealed with non-flammable fiberglass insulation, leaving no possibility of entry to wind-blown sparks.
It's bad enough when grass or trees burn but today's fires are houses and cars and gas stations and and.... Every nasty thing you can think of is in that smoke. No amount of plants or trees of any type are going to stop it. To deal with that I woulddo want a robust hepa filtration system and an off-grid way to power it. I think they would be fairly easy to build using large hepa furnace filters and a small fan. I have one in mind using a 12-volt automobile cabin fan and a small solar panel.
My dog found a dead frozen cat by the river one time. He knew if I got ahold of it, I'd take it away so when we were ready to go home, he took into the weeds and hid it. Next day on our walk he'd go get it. He didn't chew on it, he just carried it around with him. Finally, I got it and threw it in the river. Next day they must have opened the flood gates downstream because the water had gone down, exposing where I threw it and he found it again. I gave up and this went on for a couple of weeks.
Glad to hear from you Su Ba and that you are ok. You were the first thing I thought of when I heard the mountain was waking up. As screwy as it might sound, I wish I was there to see it. I read just a minute ago that the lava was only a few miles from the saddle road, but had stopped its advance, for now. Aren't you in the approximate vicinity of South Point.
Kilauea was acting up a just a little bit when we were there several years ago, liquid rocks running out the ground is something I'll for sure never forget.
Plain sunflower seeds seem to attract the most birds for me. Tit mouses, cardinals, nuthatches, some but not all woodpeckers, chickadees and some others all like it. Juncos seem to like cheap millet and cracked corn. Hoggish blue Jays like all of it so I scatter my seed on the ground instead of in a feeder, that way nobody can hog it all. It's fun to watch them all popping around scratching in the leaves. I also use a suit feeder, all of the woodpeckers and the nuthatches like that.
I have small garden pond with a pump that runs year-round. During very cold weather I see more birds and more kinds of birds drinking and bathing than I do coming for the food.
How hot can a wood rocket burner get? I need almost 1800 F to melt silver. I'm wondering if it won't quite get there on its own could adding a hand powered fan to the air intake push it up there? I only need to melt small amounts at a time and I'm talking pure .999 silver not copper alloy sterling. What material might be needed to construct it? Would cast iron stove pipe work?
Goodness, I had no idea that vinegar acted as an herbicide, learn something new every day I reckon. Grass is the biggest issue I have with weeds as well and probably even many of the same ones since I'm not all that far from you. In fact, anymore perennial grass is about the only thing I consider a weed.
Eric Hanson wrote:I guess I should be more clear when I used the word “weeds.”
In this case, 99% of the weeds are grasses. Their root masses are so thick that pulling them removes a significant quantity of my hard-fought bedding. Just leaving it in place overwhelms the garden, so I need to kill them somehow, even if that is through smothering.
Eric
Removal of your bedding need not be permanent; you might replace it later with the added bonus of the dead grass. In some cases, you might be able to just turn the whole mess upside down with the grass roots sticking up, I do that a lot. You can also turn the grass into fertilizer by submerging in a big tub of water for a couple of weeks.
I trying to picture what you are up against, if the entire area is covered with well-established grasses, then it's about the same as mine was when I first came here. It took me a long time, a little at a time to get it to shape. I think now if doing it again, I might go with the solarization method and not worry over the effect on soil organisms. Just keep a health supply of them in a compost pile and use it to add them back when the solarization if done. If you have access to them a deep cover of leaves might do the trick as well. I don't like using wood chips because it seems the grass manages to find a way through, and it takes so long to rot. You have to be careful that it stays on the surface too or it will rob nitrogen and seems to me if mixed in the soil makes it dry out badly.
Cardboard is recommended a lot, but I don't allow it anywhere near my garden. I spent a couple years unloading trailers from China at a big box distribution center. They take steps (not always successful) to keep live critters from arriving along with the product, the chemical stench was sometimes extreme. Cardboard is probably safe, sometimes, or maybe even usually, but I want nothing to do with it.
Even more, black locust has a LOT of BTUs per cord. A lot more than pine or fir.
Would you say that our numbers seem about right to you? Naturally, we would like to find sources for really hard numbers, if you can find them.
I guess you could say it's hybrid, sort of a compound hybrid maybe. The house has a 600 sq ft footprint with two little bedrooms in an A-frame upper story, so 1200 sq ft all together. Downstairs is 3/4 underground on the north and west, mostly windows on south and east. It doesn't freeze downstairs even with no heat at all. It also stays fairly cool in summer but hot humid air coming in when the door is opened makes it damp without a dehumidifier. I haven't figured out a non-electric method to deal with that, I'm afraid maybe there just isn't one.
I'll look over your numbers and do a little figuring, but I didn't even know what a cord was, so I don't know if I can be much help or not.
I have a 500-gallon propane tank, but they only fill it to 80% and I only buy it in summer when it's cheaper. I start the winter full and end up at about 50 - 60% at end of season, so generally use about 25% or 125 gallons. When I filled this past summer, the bill was around $250.
I also have the smallest Vermont Castings stove made and the smallest Stihl chain saw made. My spot under the porch where I stack my wood is about 6' long and I stack a single row about 6' high. I cut my wood to 12" to 14" length. I just looked up and found that a cord is considered 128 cubic feet. I estimate I burn a bit over 1/2 a cord per year sometimes a bit more but never a whole cord, I don't think. We burn a lot more cooking outside than heating the house.
On a cold (25 F or lower) but sunny day, the house is plenty warm from the sun. A hot fire of very well-seasoned black locust burned for a couple hours in the evening keeps it warm till we do to bed. A single 12" log of very well-seasoned black locust dropped in the hot coals will burn, not smolder, all night. The furnace is mostly just used when no one will be home all day.
I harvest from my own renewable wood lots and haul it over to the primary stack with my hand cart. I estimate in a full day of work and one 2.5 gallon can of gas I can cut three or more years of wood. I don't really know for sure because it's been three or four years since I cut wood. My most wasteful thing is because I don't know how to sharpen a chain, so I just buy a new one every four or five years.
Anyway, estimate high and add it all up per year.
$250 for propane
$2.00 gas
4 hours work
expense of 0.25 saw chains - I have four in stock
About 5 years of well-seasoned black locust is currently under cover, another fifty or more years' worth is standing. If need ever arises I'll ditch the propane.
One of those RMH sounds kind of fun but can't justify the effort and expense of replacing my current system, plus I don't think we really have room for it.
I de-bark my already seasoned firewood as I move the winter supply to the porch. Any live critters I find I feed to my fish all the bug poo and whatever else falls out is saved for my seed starter the next year. Bark itself is used for kindling or sold on Ebay for growing orchids.
Apologies if this is completely irrelevant to Montanna. Do you guys even have black locust?
I have a couple of black locust wood lots; I always kill the trees and leave them standing before cutting. I leave mine for at least two years before cutting for wood and another couple of years under cover before using. The ringing with a chain saw trick does work but sometimes, they heal back a bit and don't die and often lots of sprouts shoot up around the base.
I prefer to completely de-bark the trunk close to the ground. I use a sharp hatchet and a hammer, first chopping through until I can get the blade under the bark and then tapping it all the way around. This kills it completely and pretty much immediately. By the time I get ready to cut wood all or most of the upper branches have already dropped off so when the tree falls it doesn't damage other trees as badly. Those smaller upper branches are used for stove kindling and in the outdoor grill.
One afternoon it started raining, then it started freezing rain, then it started snowing. Then it started getting dark. I couldn't find my dog. I went to the door and yelled and yelled and he never came. Finally, totally dark and snowing like hell I put on my boots and started out to look for him. As I stepped off the porch a big drift in the snow moved and a furry, snowy head popped out. He had been there the whole time, probably thinking will you shut up, I'm trying to take a nap.
Mark Reed wrote:I don't think I would do that. On top of the possible dangers, you would have to do it on a regular basis which sounds like a bit of a pain. What I have always done for my outdoor cats and dogs is just to make sure they have a cozy, dry place out of the wind. What I think is extremely important for the coziness is a soft insulating bed. Old wool sweaters, old pillows with synthetic stuffing, maybe under it a bag of old packing peanuts or something like that. Basically, just soft cozy stuff that insulates even if wet. Straw stays wet if it gets wet and packs down, all dried out it crumbles to powder, it sticks to their fur and gets dragged out, not comfy at all.
My doghouse has a 6x6 frame that in winter is filled with chopped foam trays that meat comes on from the store, foam egg cartons and things like that. Six inches of that makes the floor. On top of that is a piece of old carpet tacked to the top of the frame to keep it all contained. On top of that is her collection of old pillows, sweaters and an old sleeping bag. She gets in there and goes around and around and fixes it just the way she wants. She really hates when I get in to clean it up a bit cause then she has to fix it back.
I think an animal with fresh water available all the time, a full belly at night and a cozy bed is perfectly happy without heat.
He’s in an unheated shed and has a 2 cubic foot plywood box inside the shed as a house. The box has an inch thick insulation stapled to it and is stuffed with hay. He seems just fine out there when it was in the 20s and 30s but now it’s 7 degrees and I worry about the little guy. Its not even that cold yet either. We usually get -20 or lower every winter. Should he be fine out there through all of that or should we draw a line somewhere and bring him in the house at a certain point?
We can get temperatures that cold but thankfully it's rare and generally just for a night or two. The line I drew that was never really crossed is if I see somebody shivering, they come in. I do admit that on rare occasion I have fixed them a warm supper and sat with them while they ate it.
I don't think I would do that. On top of the possible dangers, you would have to do it on a regular basis which sounds like a bit of a pain. What I have always done for my outdoor cats and dogs is just to make sure they have a cozy, dry place out of the wind. What I think is extremely important for the coziness is a soft insulating bed. Old wool sweaters, old pillows with synthetic stuffing, maybe under it a bag of old packing peanuts or something like that. Basically, just soft cozy stuff that insulates even if wet. Straw stays wet if it gets wet and packs down, all dried out it crumbles to powder, it sticks to their fur and gets dragged out, not comfy at all.
My doghouse has a 6x6 frame that in winter is filled with chopped foam trays that meat comes on from the store, foam egg cartons and things like that. Six inches of that makes the floor. On top of that is a piece of old carpet tacked to the top of the frame to keep it all contained. On top of that is her collection of old pillows, sweaters and an old sleeping bag. She gets in there and goes around and around and fixes it just the way she wants. She really hates when I get in to clean it up a bit cause then she has to fix it back.
I think an animal with fresh water available all the time, a full belly at night and a cozy bed is perfectly happy without heat.
I inspected my piles this morning and figure between the compost and my pile of ground-up leaves mixed with grass clippings I have more than enough, but this is an unusual project with a species that "may, I don't know for sure" actually produce better with a less nutrient rich mix. It's a comparison experiment so it's most important that all pots are filled with an identical mix, even if it isn't necessarily ideal for production.
The crop is sweet potatoes. The pots will be buried just deep enough to ensure the drain holes are completely covered and that feeder roots can exit into the ground below rather than being air pruned; another reason fertility isn't really all that necessary. Good drainage and moisture retention are both important though.
I just have pretty much zero experience with buying anything for my garden. Is there any particular source or brand of vermiculite or coconut noir anyone could recommend? Like everything else there seems to be about a million choices out there.
I'm considering something similar. I have a little drainage area near the house that drains about 2 acres or so, all on my land. The ditch along the county road channels anything from the road off in a different direction. I'm considering burying a tank in the middle of it and building a little dam just below. Then drill a bunch of holes in the top of the tank and cover it with that filter material made for aquariums. I though first of covering the ground with plastic or something but not sure it's necessary. We get downpours and a lot of water goes down that little draw. The amount of water I collect would only be limited by the size and number of tanks. I figure the grass would just act as a pre-filter, catching most of the big stuff. I'd have to filter or treat it again for drinking, I suppose, but it would be fine as is for everything else.
Thanks for the responses. I'm leaning toward the coconut noir and now after learning about Mel's mix throwing in some vermiculite, just to loosen it up a little. First things first is to go out and sift and measure my compost. I'm pretty sure I have more than enough, probably by itself, especially if I dug into my big pile of ground up leaves and grass clippings, but I don't what the final mix to be that rich in nutrients.
Would 25% vermiculite, 25% coconut noir and 50% compost be a good loose mix, not overly nutrient dense?
I'm not accustomed to buying anything at all for my garden but this project requires absolute consistency in my soil mix.
Lots of good suggestions above, adding leaves, organic matter and the like. Things that have worked for me is to stop tilling. I'm not sure exactly why that worked but the difference was rapid and pronounced. Also, someone mentioned beets. I haven't used beets, but turnips and daikon radishes planted late summer and left to rot the next spring help a lot. Also very helpful but maybe a bit distasteful in some circles are deep rooted weeds like thistles, dandelions, burdock and mullein, let them grow up big, then chop and drop. All very cheap and very effective but it does take time.
I have a need for a fairly large quantity of soil amendment for growing in pots. I have partially composted wood chips and good compost but not enough to fill all of the pots needed for my project. (150) 3.6 gallons. My compost and partially composted chips are sufficient for about 1/2 of that volume.
Unlike most of my projects, expense this time is not an issue. I'm looking for experiences and opinions on which is better, coconut noir or peat moss. Has anyone used either or both in outside container gardening? Or would some other option be better?
My area has a very large variety of pecans. Most are smaller than those southern ones you see at the store and nearly all are far better tasting. I say nearly all because there is one type with very small almost round nuts that aren't very good.
Besides a wide range in shape and size of the nuts the trees themselves vary in growth habit. Some are very tall; some are not as tall but much more spreading. I just kind of figured that they are basically a "grex", a population that has crossed and recrossed for decades or centuries. I also know of a couple of trees that by nut shape and flavor I suspect may have come from a cross with hickory, although I don't know it that's really possible.
I never had any inkling to discover a specific name for any of them, I just don't see the point. They are all just wild trees growing on their own roots, no modern hybrids or grafts. I might just call them something like "the giant tree by the old shoe factory with small round nuts" or "the skinny tree by the 4-H fair ground with the oblong nuts". Or more simply, "the museum yard pecans" or the Methodist Church pecans".
I'm not sure if they are native to SE IN or if people just brought them here a long time ago and they went wild. I sure do enjoy them though and have planted at least hundreds, probably thousands over the last fifty years or so.
Mine is just an old stainless steel kittle with holes punched in the bottom and about an inch up all around the bottom and a larger hole about 2/3 way up to drop in wood. The kittle has welded handles on the sides so I wired a grate to one of them. It keeps it in place and serves as a hinge to open it to dump ashes. The grate came from a throw away Coleman camp stove I found at a yard sale. Just flip the grate to the side and the original lid quickly puts the fire out.
I can't really explain how to barter, just that I do enjoy doing it sometimes. Near where I live something called the National Muzzle Loading Rifles Association has a twice-yearly shooting competition. It's big doings with lots of flea markets, primitive crafts and stuff.
I like to take a single item, an Indian artifact, an old knife, or maybe a hickory hiking stick that I made. I find someone who will trade my item for something I think is worth more. Then I take that item and trade it for something else. Toward the end of my best day ever and starting with a cool fossil, I ended up with an old gun. It must have been a good one because before leaving, I traded it for five US silver dollars and an 18k gold ring, set with small emeralds. I was pretending to waffle on accepting the coins and the fellow offered to throw the ring into the deal.
Maybe that gun was worth a lot of money, I hope so, but I thought five silver dollars and an 18k gold ring with real emeralds was a pretty good trade for a rock I found in the creek.
I like painting in watercolor, mostly various scenes of the sky. Don't know why I have never taken pictures and I can't look at them as I give them away as soon as they are done. I like night scenes and storm clouds and reflections on water. I've done the northern lights and full moon with craters and shadows in the craters. On my desk right now is about the 20th attempt at lightening, and it's looking pretty good. Assuming I don't have to start over again, thus not being done in time, it will be on its way to express how shockingly old someone will be in a couple weeks.
I didn't know that is the butterfly they turn into. Must be why we have so many of both. I enjoy seeing the caterpillars and have never bothered them. My dill is basically feral, there is always some in different stages of growth around here and there, they don't seem to hurt it too much overall. Although every now and then I see a plant pretty much consumed.
I think they like fennel better though, we have one patch of fennel that volunteered and established in a corner of the garden, I'm totally amazed they haven't completely killed it, but it keeps coming back. I'd say, plant some fennel and move the worms to it, if they aren't all there already.
I suppose it might be fun to grow a few tobacco plants in garden but here's how you do it old school. Important terminology in " ".
First ya got to burn the "tobacco bed". This consists of going out sometime in fall and cutting a whole bunch of brush. Make a pile, say thirty feet wide and a hundred feet long. Then in spring set it on fire and tend to it to make sure the entire area is evenly sterilized. Couple days later when it's cooled ya need to rake it smooth and sow the seeds followed by stomping the "tobacco bed" yes, the whole thing to get the seeds in good contact. Cover it up with, "tobacco canvas", a thin white row cover type material. (this was replaced sometime in the 1970's with "gassing the tobacco bed" and plastic instead of canvas). I have no first had experience with that and now it is replaced by growing in greenhouses with hydroponic "plugs", no experience with that either.
OK, now the plants have grown and are starting to lift up the canvas. It's time to "pull the tobacco". Get ya some long boards and something to prop them on to use as bridges so you don't walk on the plants and go out and pull the up and put in bundles, I don't remember how many per, two or three hundred I reckon.
Now it's time to "set the tobacco" using a "tobacco sitter". This is a contraption attached to the back of the tractor with a couple of places to sit, a big tank of water, a little plow to make the row and a chain mechanism with little rubber grabbers to stick a plant in. The chain cycles down and shoves the plant in the ground and comes back up for another one. Speed of this operation depends on skill of the sitters. Don't miss putting a plant in as a grabber comes up or you have to go out and fill the empty spots later by hand.
All righty now you're done. All that's left for a while is to hoe the tobacco and when your done with that, hoe the tobacco. Later if it starts to grow "suckers" you need to go out and pull them off. "Suckering" the tobacco. Still later it will try to bloom so now it's time to go through and "top" the tobacco. Also, at all stages you need to keep an eye out for tobacco worms, same as tomato worms, and pull them all off.
Now I know that might sound like a lot of trouble but if your patch isn't more forty or fifty acres, you'll be done in no time at all.
Later on, before school starts, the tobacco should start yellowing, especially the bigger lower leaves. The more yellow the better but not brown. Yea! it's time the "cut the tobacco". Go the barn and get the "tobacco sticks" pieces of oak about four feet long and sharp at one end. Load them on the wagon and head out to the tobacco patch and walk up and down the rows "dropping sticks" one for about every four to six plants, depending on the size of the plants. Now grab your "tobacco hatchet" a hatchet with a hammer on the back side and your "tobacco spear" a conical device with an extremely sharp point. Drive a stick in the ground and shove the spear on top. Chop off a plant and split the stalk on the sharp spear and let it slide down, do that until the stick is full, four to six plants. This is generally compensated "by the stick" maybe as much as a nickel per so the faster you are the more you make. DON'T split out a stalk so that it falls off, not even one.
Whew, that's done and about the same time next year the tobacco tar under your fingernails and in your hair will finally be gone. But you don't have that long because in a week or so it will be time to "haul in the tobacco". This is pretty self-explanatory you just go out and gather it all up on the wagon's and haul it to the "tobacco barn" a barn full of "tobacco tiers". This is just a series of flimsy poles, floor to roof just far enough apart to accommodate the tobacco sticks full of plants.
So now it's time to "hang the tobacco". Starting at the top, one kid per level and one on the wagon you need to hand it up to the top. At the top you only have to set it across the tiers rather than shoving it up over your head and nothing falls back down on you. I was smallest, lightest and less fearful of heights, so the top was mine, always, non-negotiable. Plus, I figured if I fell, those under me would cushion the impact on my way down. Pity the kind on the wagon. Alrighty, it's all hung and nothing to do with it for several weeks. It goes ahead and cures, were it finishes up turning a nice yellow, tan color.
Now we have to wait for it to "come into case". That's a nice cold wet day, generally abut Christmas time when humidity is such that it can be handled without cracking and breaking up. Time to hand it back down and haul it over to the stripping room because it's time to "strip tobacco". Here it's pulled off the sticks and passed down an assembly line of sorts with each station bulling off the various grades of leaves. Reds for highest price and grandads chewing twists, lugs for medium grade and so on, I don't remember them all.
So that is how you grow tobacco. Or used too, I don't think they even hang it in a barn anymore, instead they have these canvas covered racks right by the fields. I don't think they strip or grade it anymore either, they just bail it up whole and ship it off.
There is still plenty of hard work to it, but now it's all done by Mexicans. Can you imagine, coming up here to get covered in tobacco tar in the hot sun just to send a few dollars back to their families in Mexico, the nerve! Oh well, all the little white boys are busy with summer sports and watching video porn on their cell phones anyway, so I guess it all works out.
It's been a good bit since I updated this topic. Project is ongoing and doing pretty well. I started more seeds than ever this year and sort of bit of more than I could chew in some ways. I learned quite a bit I didn't know before, one of which is I'm terrible at making videos but here one is at harvest time thig year.
