Tobacco Plants Light up Memories

Source from:  By KENT STEINRIEDE 08/27/2004

Mary Ceaser doesn't smoke anymore, but she still has a soft spot for tobacco. It's not for an after-dinner cigarette, however, it's for the tall stalks and fuzzy leaves of the tobacco plant. The plant reminds her of growing up in Danville, Va., where her family grew tobacco on a small farm. "It was our livelihood," she said. "It's just in me." More than 40 years after leaving Virginia for Delaware, tobacco is still part of Ceaser's life. Each year Ceaser, 64, and her husband, William, buy small tobacco plants from Amish vendors in Pennsylvania, and Mary Ceaser plants them in their Wilmington back yard and in containers on their front porch. Tobacco is just one of many plants that she grows in her packed garden of her row home. Ceaser is a 20-year member of Delaware Center for Horticulture and a longtime competitor in the organization's annual city gardens contest. Ripe peaches hang from a tree, grape vines grow along the fence and small houseplants have been planted in everything from a football helmet to one of Sen. Tom Carper's running shoes. But tobacco is her sentimental favorite. Tobacco, Nicotiana tabacum, is a tall perennial in some climates but is grown as an annual here. It has large, tropical-looking, spear-shaped leaves with tiny hairs. As the plants grow tall, Ceaser pinches off the flowering stalks so that the leaves will enlarge. In August or September, she begins harvesting the leaves and dries them in bunches, which turns them yellow and light brown. In smoking-tobacco production, the leaves are dried and then cured in a warm barn. When the leaves dry, starches in the plant convert to sugar. Slow curing causes the sugars to ferment, which gives tobacco its aroma and flavor when smoked. Instead of smoking, Ceaser uses the dried leaves for home decoration. Enditem