@Stitch Don’t get me wrong, I do like the scented tobacco immensely. It seem s like the more wild and exotic flavors that come out, the more overlooked is a mastery of the tobacco in it’s most simple form. PLAIN is a terrible description of what a craftsman can do when he brings together many leaves in an unscented mix that blends complex in the nose. Surely it is easier to mask poor tobacco with many strong scents. I don’t claim to be an expert but I really feel you are headed in the correct direction with a quality plain, (and some VERY lightly scented) snuff. I would think a mastery of the plain would have to be first. Simplicity will always sell.Very excited when I read your last post!
A zephyr of fresh pear would be fantastic.
My tobacco about three weeks ago with my two lil’ Snuffers…
Beautiful plants. Where do you live, Bart?
Hi Bart, thanks for posting the picture. That tobacco looks healthy and your kids look healthy too, plus full of mischief. Nice pic.
Wow, that is awesome. All the best of luck to you, Stitch.
@cstokes4 & snuffhead Thanks! I wanted to show stitch a couple photos and hope he could put some up with the beginnings of his operation. He sounds very knowledgable! I live about 12 miles east of Cincinnati, Ohio. I grew these on the property where I grew up. I have much to learn about growing tobacco but seemed to have a decent growing season and crop this year-My plan is to cure it for 6-8 weeks and then tie it in hands and hang it roughly another year. I told Stitch I’d pull out some of the better hands to send to him around Thanksgiving. I’m hoping they could be used in some type of mix snuff because I don’t believe burley is a tobacco that will stand on its own as snuff-I may be wrong. It’s hanging as I speak-Maybe I’ll post some other photos when I get home tonight. You have to excuse my computer skills-my last computer was a Commodore 64. Sad, eh…
Very cool, Bart. My Mom’s side of the family is from Ohio, I lived there for a number of years in my youth, around Youngstown. My Mom is from Mechanicsburg which is around Urbana and Springfield. I miss Ohio in the fall. I just ordered a bunch of seeds to try my hand at growing. I think the climate down here in Florida allows for growth year round. One question… What’s a Commodore 64??? LOL!
A computer I was introduced to in gradeschool . I believe a calculator has more memory than one of those old things-worthless! I used to say computers were just a fad 
i suppose I may have been wrong. Year round growing would be nice!! Some things I’ve learned this year: spacing needs to be greater on the plants, pay more attention to the tobacco worm, possibly “priming” the bottom leaves early on-I lost quite a few bottom leaves because as the plants grew wider and I couldn’t cultivate between them, the bottom leaves got scalded from a greenhouse effect coming up from the damp ground on a hot day. May be important down in Florida? Well, good to meet someone with Buckeye roots!
Oh yes, GO BUCKS! I think we have Indiana for lunch this week… The greenhouse effect would be a HUGE issue down here. Just the heat and humidity alone is bad. Luckily, it’s starting to finally cool down a bit, it’s been getting to the 60’s overnight. I’m sure I will have some questions when everything get’s going.
Are you a TB bucs fan cstokes?
@ Bart, when you say you’re going to cure it and then hang it for a year, what do you mean by that? I have no knowledge of tobacco growing and/or drying/curing. What I had in mind was this: Once the tobacco leaves are fully grown, I will cut it off and tie it in bundles. This bundles I will hang in my wendy house until it is dry. Only then can I start curing it. Curing is done by fermenting. Once it’s cured and properly dried out, it can be ground into snuff. I will appreciate your help!!!
@Miamimark: Err… no. Even though they are the FL NFL team closest to Orlando, I’ve never been a fan. By GO BUCKS! I meant The Ohio State Buckeyes and THE BEST DAMN BAND IN THE LAND!
I realized that but it made me wonder. My current “female friend” is from Ft. Meyers and a Bucs fan. They play my team, the Skins this weekend.
@stitch, whenever I order a steak in a steakhouse and the waiter wants to know whether I’d like some sauce with it, my custom reply is: “Do you doubt the quality of your meat”? That, of course, is only a joke as I do sometimes like some garlic or pepper sauce with a steak. But it’s a fact that one cannot hide poor quality meat by adding some sauce. Same rule applies to snuff as far as I’m concerned. I do love flavoured snuffs with my #1 being Toque Peach. But I also, maybe more so, love pure, unscented tobacco. Be it cigars, pipe tobacco, cigarettes or snuff, I prefer the natural products over the flavoured ones. I sometimes bought cherry flavoured cigars because it SMELLED so good. Problem is it did not TASTE so good! A pinch of Toque Natural or Quit, Taxi or Ntsu is what it’s all about. Not to mention Spanish Jewel. I love STRONG stuff. While I was still taking alcohol, I always prefered the strong tasting stuff. I loved White Horse whiskey, Castle beer, Oude Meester brandy, Red Heart rum. I smoked Texan cigarettes, Horseshoe tobacco in my pipe and big ol’ Davidoff cigars. So, please give me a strong, good tasting, pure tobacco snuff and I will love you for the rest of my life!
@Pieter Yes Pieter, I think there are many differnt styles of curing and harvesting different tobacco depending where you are located. Around Ohio and Kentucky, most folks grow just Burley. I am just a beginner, myself, and have learned much from a friend in Kentucky who has grown tobacco for 60+ years. With Burley at least, the plant is topped before or right as it is beginning to flower. Major growers apply a sucker chemical at this point to stop the growth of the little new shoots that would take away from the leaves recieving nutrients. I had to manually pull these suckers off. If a sucker chemical is used, the farmer must count the days from the application because a side effect of the chemical is that it yellows the tobacco leaves. (You cannot tell by looking if the plant is ready for harvest) My friend counts 20 some days. Then the plant is cut on the lower stalk and with the help of a spear, four or so plants are hung a a 4 foot stick on rails running thru the barn. The barn has long doors that can be adjusted for allowing humidity in. From this point on, the tobacco can only be handled when it’s in case (soft and pliable because of moisture) . The air- cured process takes 6-8 weeks. During this time, it’s best if the plant goes “in and out of case” (back and forth between very dry to pliable) and it’s believed the stalk also imparts some better flavor to the curing process. Either way, after 6-8 weeks, the tobacco is taken down in case and the leaves are stripped and separated into 4 grades. They are bundled and brought to the dealers. There is no such thing as the old fashioned auctions around here anymore. My friend has a contract with Phillip Morris International. He shows up with the stripped, graded tobacco and they weigh it and give him a check. That’s the last he sees of it. He says within a week or two his tobacco is shipped to Venezuela! I plan on taking the stripped leaves,(stripped of the viens) and tieing them into “hands”-about8-10 leaves in a bundle. These can be smoked or chewed and (hopefully snuffed)at this point but at least another year hanging would do them well. Some put the leaves in hogsheads to age. I’m afraid to do that yet because there is a risk of mold if the humidity is inaccurate. With some other tobacco, the leaves are “primed” , manually pulled from the plant as they ripen from the bottom up and these are either tied across a stick to sun dry or I’ve seen them put in a kiln to dry or flue dry. I am very thankful to have a sight like this where I can learn and see new ideas and talk to some nice folks from all over the world. I am definitely no expert, but this sight has made me love the noble tobacco plant even more and increase my snuff usage! Maybe this helped, Pieter? I’ll try to put some other photos on tonight that may help to see what I speak of. So long. Bart
Wow. I have a lot to learn and read before I’m ready to do anything with my seeds.
@ Bart: Thank you so much, I see what you mean by curing. @cstokes4: Same here, my friend!
And the same here, but as we use to say: even dwarves have started small.