The flowers are producing a small but constant supply of floral smokes. I hope many more will mature before the season ends. So far I only have a couple of leaves started on the way to smokability but there are a good few nearly ready and I might get a decent crop this year after all.
Nowhere near as good as last year but then I lost half of last year’s to mould, so I might actually end up with more baccy this year from fewer, shorter plants.
This year I will try Junican’s towel method (I will use paper towels because I can’t spare enough real ones) and follow Rose’s tip of not letting the leaves hang in the cool of the night. That just encourages moulds.
I won’t get a full year’s supply this time, it’ll be a while yet before I reach that stage, but every leaf that reaches smokability is at least ten cigarettes the useless wasters don’t get to tax.
The less tax they have, the less hate they can pour on me.
I really need to corrupt that MC Hammer song, don’t I? (You can’t smoke here). However, I will never be seen in those ridiculous trousers.
Damn it, LI! Surely you have some some smelly old underpants stuffed behind couch seats etc? Any old cloths at all? INSULATION, mate! But absorbant insulation. But who knows? Experiment and see what happens. Paper? Fine, but how infra dig! The proper coating for tobacco experiences must be nothing less than the sheerest silk!
At the moment, we are playing with home growing of tobacco plants. I read somewhere that tobacco plants are still recreating themselves in the places in England where they were commonly grown 200 years ago. What varieties of tobacco plants were they? We have only the word of others that baccy plants are strictly annuals. Why should they not self-seed as many annuals and perrenials do?
It has been possible for the Gov to ban the cultivation of cannabis plants, but the control has only been possible because cannabis requires high temperatures. Tobacco plants do not need these high temperatures so that anyone can grow the stuff in their homes.
Even the EX-Health Sec (un-health sec), Lansley cum Ash cum Cruk
I must to bed.
Not necessarily in their homes or gardens. Plenty of wild ground around these parts
The paper towels may dry the leaves before they go yellow or tear with all the wrapping and unwrapping, how about wrapping them in an old T shirt?
T-shirts aplenty here. I bought some a few years back, the last time we had a proper summer, and have had no use for them since.
I’m just about to start picking leaves. Growing season is normally a little behind everyone else this far north, and this year it’s worse than usual. My tomato plants have now reached the greenhouse roof and are heavily laden with masses of green tomatoes. Looks like it’s chutney again…
Not necessarily.
Science: Hormones for Plants – TIME
Monday, Oct. 15, 1945
“Portuguese growers in the Azores knew a century ago that burning wood in their hothouses made the pineapples ripen quicker. (It was the ethylene gas in the wood smoke.)”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,792440,00.html
And tomatoes.
Junican put me on to that one.
I’ll have to smoke more often in there. Lately it’s been a case of call in, water the plants, swear at the green tomatoes and that’s it.
Well, as a last resort you might try freeze-drying the leaves?
That might work, but it might be hard to rehydrate them. The flowers are becoming a seasonal treat, and I might prefer to leave them as such. It’s not a treat if you have it every day.
The green leaves shatter easily when you freeze them.
I believe Churchmouse is investigating this as he was impressed with their healing abilities when he cut himself badly in the garden.
He is hoping to test them over winter, particularly on shaving cuts.
Of the Tabaco and of His Greate Vertues
“This text is from John Frampton’s translation of Nicholas Monardes. It was published in 1577 under the title Joyfull Newes our of the Newe Founde Worlde”
“THIS herb, which commonly is called tobacco, is an herb be of much antiquity, and known amongst the Indians, and in especially among them of the new Spain, and after that those countries were gotten by our Spaniards, being taught of the Indians, they did profit themselves of those things, in the Wounds which they received in their Wars, healing themselves therewith, to the great benefit of them.”
http://archive.tobacco.org/History/monardes.html
As raw nicotine is supposed to be a vasoconstrictor it should stop the bleeding quickly and it has also been found to promote angiogenesis,I expect it will work.
Apart from which an ice cold piece of green tobacco on a cut sounds very soothing on it’s own.
In other news I have just cracked open the cider I made last year, to use in the chilli jam, it smells delicious, tastes rather good and is a shade over 11% alcohol.
It’s made from Greensleeves apples brewed on their own wild yeast.
Obviously I did have to drink it first just in case I poisoned anyone.
It wouldn’t be a good idea to freeze them while green, they might not subsequently cure. From what I have been able to find – not much, the study of the entire area seems taboo – it doesn’t seem to involve microbes too much. It’s more like the process in a banana, that turns it from a starchy rod into a sugary mush.
It appears that it’s the amylases in the leaf that do the curing, all we need to do is keep moulds out. Frozen leaves might lose that amylase and then not cure properly, but freezing after curing might be an option.