Anyone out there growing tobacco? I decided this year to grow my own - in pots, on my terrace. Didn’t grow much but with the yield I have I am inspired to grow more next year. Most of what I have is curing right now. I bought Black Mammoth short stalk specifically for snuff along with some other varieties to see what happens. I was away for most of the summer so couldn’t feed the plant’s and as a result one or two ended up with a nutrient deficiency but other than that all looks well. The plants have not been sprayed with anything, just fed with normal plant food once a week and I am hoping to get at least a little snuff from what I have. If it turns out to be any good and I have a surplus, I would be happy to share with anyone who might be interested - so feel free to let me know if you want any. Knowing nothing about growing and curing tobacco I have gone by the book; that said, I found out pretty quickly that there are a lot of books, most of which are filled with a lot of useless jibba-jabba. Finally I found a pamphlet by the old British pioneer tobacco growers association, from the 1940’s which is only a few pages long and very succinct. It gives 5 or six ways of curing tobacco for the home grower and I can only recommend it. Anyway - if anyone out there has any growing/curing experiences to share I would be happy to hear about them. Best… Ubert
I have not tried growing my own, but I’m very interested in it. How did the Snuff turn out?
I had planted some Rustica directly in soil .they started late and I have two very small plants. I may try next year starting early indoors. Gardening is a time consuming activity ,I have a hard enough time keeping up with cutting the lawn. As for making snuff it so easy to push check out. You may want to join or at lease lurk at http://www.howtogrowtobacco.com/
Here’s a thread from 2009 where we discussed this. http://snuffhouse.org/discussion/2778/growing-your-own/p1 I got 14 plants this season. My problem right now is I barely have enough room to hang them all.
I recently bought a package of rustica seeds, but will have to wait until winter is over before I plant them. I like the Toque rustica enough to grow some of my own, here in the high country. It was advertised as Navajo Mapacho seed, but since I know nothing about growing tobacco it will be a surprise, whatever I end up with, I will dry, cure and grind it and see if it is on par w/ Roderick’s great product. I’m not expecting it to be great, but it could be just that. I will post my results in about 8 months from now.
Guys, thanks for your replies. I have been a bit absent lately but here’s the main problem I have had this year: I had to spend a lot of time away from my plants… they looked ok but I had to harvest late and in Western Europe that can be tricky depending on where you are geographically. So - it has been a wet Autumn and the plants are not curing properly…mol
@mrmanos how was your tobacco crop? I am going to grow some rustica this year… Growing tobacco and curing tobacco is actually not that hard, I got some good results in the end.
Time to saw this years crop. Jaap Bes.
@snuffmiller absolutely - I will be setting some rustica over the coming days. What are you growing this year? Would you be willing to part with some seeds or even trade a few for some snuff? I have just rehydrated some of last year’s crop and made a few twists which now sit in a jar with a vanilla pod - will probably try some in a pipe in Autumn.
I have Small Stalk Black Mammoth, Virginia Gold, and Rustica seeds here and will be starting them in 3-4 weeks. After another 15cm of snow yesterday I’m not sure if summer will ever come for me to be able to plant them! I’m thinking 4 black mammoth, 4 virginia, and 6-8 rustica should be good for a first try.
@crullers - Will you be growing in pots or in the ground?
I plan to grow the black mammoth, virginia, and 6 rustica in an existing garden plot I have on my property. I might put a couple of rustica in pots just to see how they compare to the ones grown in the garden. Also, I have a friend with an aquaponic setup who seemed interested in seeing how a rustica would do there.
Sounds good - I grew in large pots last year and the short stalk Black Mammoth I had actually got pretty tall, but then again the pots were very deep. If you are growing on the ground and giving them plenty of space you’ll no doubt end up with so good size plants. The only trouble I had with some of the stuff I grew in the ground was the slugs and snails but a gardener friend of mine said I should put copper strips around the plants to keep 'em away. The other thing I noticed was that feeding the plants really paid off - perhaps naively I was not expecting to see much of a difference but I have since read that tobacco plants really deplete the soil so feeding is a necessity. would be interested to hear how your rustica grows - where are you based?
I’m an hour east of Detroit on the Canadian side of the border. My county is still the largest producer of black tobacco in Canada although you’d never know it. 20 or so years ago there were several tobacco fields around my small town. Last summer I only saw 2 nearby. The garden I am growing in had tomatoes and bell peppers grown in it last year so I am already prepared to be liberal with the fertilizer and plant food. Thanks for the copper tip - I hadn’t heard that one yet.
I’m in Luxembourg and although we are not known for tobacco, neighbouring France has some decent tobacco - so I am not worried about the climate. Just need to pay attention to harvest timing coz I missed it last year so the stuff took ages to cure and I ended up losing a lot of it to mold.
I see that Luxembourg has an oceanic climate, same as England and I know of a fellow there that has had pretty good success growing tobacco. I read that harvest timing is very important. What I plan to do is keep an eye on the nearby fields (if any are left) and take mine off around the same time. Luckily I’m able to use this as a guide in my first year. Tobacco is pretty hardy stuff though so I’m not too worried about missing it by a week or two. I’ll be interested to see how you make out with it over there!
Cheers, I will post the progress and maybe some pics this season. Some Virginia tobacco just landed in the post today so I will probably get that set later today.
@Ubert: We grow three species; Nicotiana tabaccum (possibly descendents of the Amersfoorter Bestgoed), Nicotiana rustica and Nicotiana allata. The last one only to be used as ornamental. I’ll be happy to sent you some seeds from the comming harvest. Jaap Bes.
@snuffmiller that would be great, give me a shout whenever you are ready. What’s the story with the ornamental variety? Is it simply not for human consumption - that is to say, lethal, or does it just look pretty? Sorry if I am a bit naïve here.
@Ubert: It has larger flowers and small leaves. So just look pretty. Jaap Bes.