Tobacco Time 2014

Dark tobacco likes warm dry weather...  This year was perfect for dark tobacco especially since we were able to irrigate most of the crop.  The tobacco had beautiful long and wide leaves this year. 

We utilize all types of technology on our farm.  Tobacco is still a labor intensive crop.  Most all the work is still performed by hand.  We have a wonderful group of H2A workers who help us get our tobacco in.  Many of them have been working for us over 10 years or more. 

Each plant is cut and spiked by hand onto a stick.  There are 6 plants put on each stick.  Each stick is then picked up and placed on a wagon by hand for transport to the barn.  Once we get to the barn each stick is unloaded and handed up into the barn and placed on the tiers in the barn once again by hand.  Each acre of tobacco will have about 850 sticks.  Whew, it makes me tired to even think about it! 

Our boys, 3 and 7, even have a job at the tobacco patch.  There have been many people weighing in on farm kids and working on our farms lately.  It is our opinion that we know what is best for our children and we better understand their capabilities at a certain age NOT our government!

Jorge bringing sawdust into a dark fired tobacco barn.  Sawdust is added on top of hardwood slabs to control the fires as they burn in the barn. 

A barn after we lit fires.  The fires will burn for about three to four weeks in each barn to cure and finish the tobacco.

My grandfather standing in a barn that was built by his grandfather over 100 years ago.  It's a special thing to consider the history, hard work and knowledge handed down through generations of our family in an old tobacco barn.

We had a new dark air cured barn built this year.  The new barn holds a little over 10 acres of tobacco.  I can't help but wonder if my family will still use it 100 years from now.

These pictures of the men in the barn are unique because we hung the tobacco in the barn before we put the sides on it.

The last stick of the 2014 crop going into the barn.  It's always a good feeling to be finished cutting tobacco.  This was on a Friday and they started stripping tobacco the next Monday.  The bottom picture is most of our 2014 crew.  Their hard work is appreciated by our family.