I live in the NW (Seattle) USA. Our summers are short and spring is now early this year. What is the best seeds to plant or starts of the plant to grow? I would love to try growing tobacco for the first time. My wife smokes, but my interest is to try making snuff for myself.
Rustica is easy. I would plant a variety. Tobacco blends should be multi dimensional. Virginia and Burley come to mind
Check out the forum at fairtradetobacco dot com for details about growing in your region. There’s tons of great tobacco growing information there. The owner of that site sells whole leaf tobacco so you could order some to play with while your crop is in. Once you’ve got some tobacco to work with, this thread started by @Juxtaposer provides detail about turning your leaf into snuff: Snuff making 101. As @basement_shaman stated, a variety of tobaccos would make for a more interesting snuff. Some snuffs are made from a single tobacco base but that tobacco has been cured, stored, and aged expertly. You could make snuff immediately after the tobacco has cured, but if you apply some ageing, fermenting, and mixing of varieties it would change that cured leaf into something much more complex. I grew a rustica variety and Small Stalk Black Mammoth last year and was very successful. It’s all hanging right now waiting for further processing. This year I have a Virginia, a Burley, and an Oriental to grow. The Virginia variety (Del Gold) was developed just down the road from me so I am expecting it to do well as it is suited for my climate. There are some pitfalls and tricks to growing tobacco, the site mentioned above will help you through it. I put my success from last season down to beginner’s luck - we’ll see how it goes this year.
Does anybody have any information/ experience of doing this in the UK?
I’ve grown tobacco in the past here on Cape Cod, late springs, probably not too different from your climate. The most important thing is to plant the seedling is really warm soil, too cold and they will be set back significantly. The old-timers used to burn a brush pile on the soil they were going to use. It heated the soil and provided the extra potash the plants need.
@BigRiggers01 There are some UK growers on fairtradetobacco. Have a look through the grow blogs there to find them and you will see the process from beginning to end.
@BigRiggers and crullers: I’ve grown three tobacco species - N. tabacum; N. rustica and N. allata in Holland near the windmills for several years. I germinate the seeds indoors, because they need a temperature of at least 20 degrees C and planted the seedlings outside in the last quarter of May when the night frost is over. Hope this will help. If interested in seeds let me know. Jaap Bes.
Many thanks to all of you for your advice and guidance