Growing your own tobacco

[Markx]

As someone who recently started growing their own pipe tobaccos (which are not ready to smoke yet) I'm interested in knowing how many of you would consider it.
Do you have the space for growing it?

 

[bigmick]

I grew some last season. Not specifically for my pipes, but to attempt to make snuff and snus. I grew ten plants in a 6'x10' patch. They grew big and well. The two downsides for me were I didn't get any usable seeds and I found out I have a lot to learn about curing and drying. In the end I got very little usable tobacco. Maybe 5 pounds of leaves, but only about 1 pound of tobacco after drying and loses.

Good luck. Also watch out for hookworms. Nasty little nicotine addicted buggers. :shock:

 

[MisterE]

A friend of mine and I are planning on trying this here in Mexico. We know absolutely nothing about it at all so I´d love to find out more!!

We have the place, and gettting seeds is no prob, we´re at the how stage...

 

[Buddy Springman]

Googling offers quite a few hits on this. I've seen my (lack of) gardening skills in action and didn't dig any deeper.

Buddy

 

[Markx]

I was never really into gardening and this is also my first go at growing something "useful".
In this case I'm twice as determined because in GB tobacco is approx $8 an ounce which is an insult and I want to stick it to the b'stads.

Had a setback with my GB harvest, half of which went mouldy in my absence while hung for curing. Don't yet know if my Azores crop survived.
I'd therefore suggest that you treat your first season purely as a learning experience and an interesting experiment. It sure beats growing flowers and I'm having great fun. Just watching those leaves grow is very satisfying.

People have grown tobacco indoors in pots too btw. If you're going to do that I'd suggest one of the smaller varieties.
It would be dead easy to grow 1000's of seedlings and plant them in public because each plant produces many 1000's of seeds which can have a germination rate of over 90%.


Anything you'll ever need to know about growing baccy can be found here: http://www.howtogrowtobacco.com/forum/index.php
They also swap seeds or there may even be someone near you happy to get you started.

MisterE: I suggest you get organised because now is about the time to start the seedlings.
Like I said, just treat the first season as an experiment and don't take it too seriously.

 

[bigmick]

A friend of mine and I are planning on trying this here in Mexico. We know absolutely nothing about it at all so I´d love to find out more!!

We have the place, and gettting seeds is no prob, we´re at the how stage...

If you can grow tomatoes, you can grow tobacco. At least that was the advice I was given when I started thinking about it. True, growing it was pretty simple. Thirsty little buggers at first, but once they started going good not as much.

 

[bronxbill]

Growing the tobacco is not an issue, it's the curing that will be a pain

 

[RealtorFrank]

I have been contemplating it for the last couple years. I've got a big piece of land, and have always thought about adding a few rows of tobacco at the end. have you had good results with yours? Any tips that you have discovered?

 

[Markx]

As I said, the batch that didn't go moldy is still curing, so I haven't smoked any yet.
My biggest tip so far would be:
Make sure that humidity never goes above 70% when you are curing your tobacco.
Growing it is easy, the aging and curing is what needs care.
Looking at your cellars, I think most of you are in a better position than me to cure tobacco. some whole leaves hanging from the ceilings would sure complete the picture!