Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying out a few more tobacco blends. My daily go-to blend has become Towers of Antioch, a relatively Latakia-forward (37.5%) English blend that becomes quite wonderful after a few days in a press. Wonderful enough that I no longer lament the passing of Sutliff’s Sobranie match mixture… this is easily as good, and I can make all I want at a lot lower cost. I’m trying one now with 1/16th less Latakia and 1/16th more Oriental in it, named Damascus Sun. Too soon to tell if this one will be a winner; I only pressed it for a couple of days, and it will need to age for a week or two at least before it matures enough to really evaluate. So far it’s not bad, a little milder than ToA.
I also planted some veggies and tobacco varieties in starter seed trays, and those are sprouting. The corn and cucumbers are leading the charge, with green onions and cherry tomatoes trying to catch up. The spinach is lagging, with only one cell out of six having sprouted so far. I have faith that some more will come up, even if I need to poke a few more seeds in. Of the half dozen varieties of tobacco I planted, five are starting to come up, so I’ll be thinning those out in a week or two. I’m looking forward to getting the veggie planters and new landscaping done so we can transplant once the weather improves some.
I’m trying some new varieties of “pipe weed” this year, including a Burley, some Perique, and a Maryland that’s usually used for cigars, but is also used on some pipe blends.