I have not made a post here is a while. Things are moving along at a steady pace with our tea production with us isolated down on the farm. We bagged 17 pounds of black yesterday in five gallon Mylar bags that require them to be ironed closed. I also am having a steady stream on visitors which makes me feel like I have a real job. We have guest and we do not get near to each other so a farm visit can be safe for us. It has gotten really hot but the tea keeps growing. Not any exciting news, just farm work.
The photo here is one of several low cut rows that seems to put a crop on in three to four weeks. I have picked this area several times and it keeps putting on. I have about settled into a pick for four days, process for four days and hopefully lay around lazy for four days routine but the tea growth demands I get up and go to work. It is 96 today but I am about to get buttered up in sunscreen and bug spray, tape up my picking fingers and hit the field.
I am having a problem with grass this year that I have not experienced. The bahaya grass is growing up in my cut-low rows to the point it is getting into my picking bag with the tea. Usually it is quite easy to pick out any foreign leaf or twig but small bits of grass blades are hard to see. When the tea gets dry it is still hard to see. It is not like it is contaminated with some awful agent because dried bahaya grass is high quality racehorse feed but you can not sell a customer a bag of tea with a blade of grass inside. I have actually stopped picking in a couple areas because the grass is getting in the way. Not sure what I will do about this.
I am having incredible traffic on this site. I actually can not believe the numbers of daily readers, like 1800 hits this past Saturday. I really can not believe that many people want to read about Alabama tea. If anyone has any questions are comments just let me know. Lytermanor@aol.com
Donnie