Saw this on my way back from breakfast yesterday.
It’s a local Amish farm, quite a good selection of fresh stuff, sorry about the wheelie bin, I did not want to disturb it.
Growing in the field next to the sign is this.
Not quite ready for harvest, I wonder if it will be listed on the sign when they get it cut?
Here’s a big hint, the next cross-road is called “Frisby’s Prime Choice Lane”
Boadicea's Chariot 
The Golden Leaf. http://i01.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/106056431/Tobacco.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU7NEOBnMVI
OZ
Sod the tobacco, I want to see the ‘jargoods’ growing!
🙂 Me too!
Sipu: You must have been a grower to recognize it at this early stage, this was a big tobacco area many years ago, it seems to be coming back amongst the Amish,it’s a good cash crop if the farm has limited acreage, labour intensive, but the Amish have the whole family working at harvest time.
OZ: Different weed, man!
CO and Jahn: Again two countries divided by a common language. Here’s a selection of “Jargoods” from the farm store
Apple Butter
Strawberry Preserves
Pickled Asparagus Florets
Pickled Beets
Pickled Egg Plant
and my personal favorite
OK, someone has to ask, what in the name of all that’s holy are ‘skunk eggs?’
Bravo: In the language of the cowboys, Onions.
I was indeed a tobacco farmer. I even studied at The Tobacco Training Institute. (Can you believe that such a place existed, given the opprobrium attached to the weed). We used to grow about 100 ha (240 acres), some under irrigation and some ‘dry land’. Zimbabwe produced high yields, (4,000 kgs/ha) and because each leaf was graded by hand we got good prices, but the quality of American tobacco was difficult to beat. Prior to Rhodesia’s UDI, we were number 2 exporter in the world. After sanctions were imposed, Brazil pushed us into 3rd. Mugabe has pushed us out of the rankings. I think China is and has been biggest producer for a number of years. Tobacco is very labour intensive and though I have never smoked, one can become quite passionate about it.
Sipu, did you know any of the BAT guys?
When I say ‘We used to grow about 100 ha (240 acres), some under irrigation and some ‘dry land’.’ I mean on our farm. Nationally, Zimbabwe used to produce about 220 million kgs per year.
Bravo, Yes, I knew a couple. Well I can think of one in particular. A lot of chaps from my school went into the industry. Philip Morris, Universal Leaf Tobacco etc. There was usually a bit of a rift between the buyers and the growers. The growers did the work and the buyers used to rip us off. Or at least that is how we saw it.
Neil Johnson?
And here’s me thinking that the agronomists were there to help the local farmers 😀
Neil does sound very familiar. I am sure our paths would have crossed. It was a long time ago that I farmed. We were commercial farmers and operated independently, without the assistance of the big companies. But when things went pear-shaped, companies like BAT financed small growers. I know all the chaps who run Northern Tobacco who essentially represent BAT. The complaint about such companies is that once you are in hock to them they have you by the proverbials and it is amazing how the price of tobacco collapses once that happens. We used to sell our tobacco on the auction floors where buyers from all over the world came and bought.
I asked about Neil as he was the first Rhodesian I met from BAT – he was Director of Leaf Operations for China when I first went there as a civvie. I know quite a few of the buyers from all of the big companies. Smuggling leaf is now big business…
used to see a lot growing in Kentucky too.
Every single cigarette brand sold in South Africa, Botswana and Zambia, tasted the same. All loaded with chemicals.
Sipu,
Was it growing it that made you anti smoking?
Hi Toc, no. When I was a lad, we used to make our own mealie-cob pipes and fill them with tobacco from the grading shed. I got so sick on a couple of occasions that I never enjoyed it thereafter. As seniors at school, we were allowed to smoke in the common room. Many people took it up because it was deemed cool. I took the view that it was cooler not to do what everybody else did. I was never anti it per se and I always defend people’s right to smoke. While I acknowledge it must be hard to give up, I think it is very silly to start in the first place, especially those who started after about 1980. Bit like having a tattoo.
There are a few things that put me off the whole smoking malarky though. I get annoyed when people leave the dinner table to go and have a smoke outside. Although I do not like the smell of smoke, it does not make me ill or anything and I would rather they smoked at the table than break up the party every 10 minutes, as some people do. Also I dislike it when one meets people for coffee and they have to sit outside so that they can smoke. Its fine if its fine, but not cool when it is cool or wet. It limits the places one can go to.
I suppose what the world-wide clamp down on smoking has done is to expose the fact that those who smoke really are addicted. One used not to notice if somebody lit up. Now it is such a performance and so disruptive you cant help but lose a little respect for those who have that need to do it.
Interestingly, I have found myself becoming intensely irritated by some films and shows set in the 50s and 60s. ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ and ‘Mad Men’ for example are full of people who are constantly lighting up and smoking almost incessantly. It puts me right off the show. Silly, I know, but there it is.
I do, however, enjoy a cigar from time to time.
Ah, the intensity of the convert always brings a tear to my eye. 🙂
OZ
Sipu,
It was a nice surprise to find that at both Cape Town and Johannesburg airports there were smoking lounges. They even had one at Livingstone airport as well. 🙂
OZ, apart from a couple of pipes at the age of 10, I have never been a smoker. The fact that I do not smoke now, hardly makes me a convert, intense or otherwise. For a while, my livelihood depended on people smoking. What I find interesting is how I have become less tolerant as public attitudes change; or more likely how the laws change. Smoking used to be normal. Now it is unusual. I am libertarian. People must do what they want. I just find that some of what they do is quite odd.