Raising tobacco

Beeman, you beat me to the punch on the hail insurance. As a kid we raised Burley in northern Kentucky and all work was done by hand. For a kid it was a nice bit of money after the sale in the fall, but a crap load of work to get to that point. We collected wood all year long to burn the area for our seed bed and it was one heck of a hot fire. We also rotated our tobacco base every year. Can remember seeing volunteer melons growing years after in tobacco fields from eating them cold during work in the summers before.

I hate those worms. ::shivers:: Used to pick them off as a job when I was a kid from test beds. Also as a kid did the lower leaf cutting..nasty job.

__________________
Christy
Growing Human
http://growinghuman.blogspot.com

When wearing narrow lenses of hate and ignorance, is it any wonder one finds it difficult to see clearly? - Me

ChristyACB,

Our Burley was air cured and the entire plant was cut down at one time vs the cutting leaves at a time and doing the fire curing. Get a tobacco spear run into your bicep and it gets your attention, plus a trip to the house for some minor doctoring. Can't see a scar now, but that was over 40 years ago!!!

Seems like Ive seen it growing up in Canada.

Just curious to see if there was any money in it, on a small scale. Kind of cool (kool ?) to see it growing and drying in the barns. The plots I saw were less than 3 acres.

Beeman cured me of the notion, by describing the amount of labor involved.

I already have too many irons in the fire. Plus, I'd probably have to take up smoking again.

Several of our Amish neighbors grow tobacco. Their kids provide all the cheap labor they need, and that's a lot. No hail prayers since they don't have insurance. Our July 24 widespread hail storm did lots of damage to many fields around us, most with 100% loss. Those big leaves were shredded, just like the corn and soybeans. Sad to see.

It seems to me that they only grow backie one year here and then rotate the field to something else.

Peg

Try this website

http://www.scribd.com/doc/8227028/Gr...Curing-Tobacco