pipemakersforum.com

Just a reminder, now is a good time to start looking around for tobacco seeds.

Newton Tobacco Seed

Seedman.com (Site features lots of helpful information and links.)

Victoryseeds.com (includes heirloom tobacco seeds, info etc.)

Ebay search for "tobacco seeds"

By the time you snoop around and decide what you want to grow, order it, and they ship it to you, it will be just about time to start sprouting it.

I recommend starting out with at least three or four different varieties so you can see which ones grow best with your climate and soil conditions.

Well, I took the plunge! Ordered 5 or 6 varieties. We'll see how green my thumb is.

Cool.

Robert.. if I wanted to give this a swing what types of seeds would you suggest starting off with? Or does it not matter so much with tobacco as it does with, say, house plants?

Also, how much direct afternoon sunlight is necessary for raising these plants up? My aparment faces east/west with the front facing west and the rear, the area I'd grow my plants, on the east. I get some nice morning-to-noon sunlight out on my patio area but not very much once the sun starts westering. I've been afraid to get anything started back there because I'm not real sure the sunlight I get is enough. I have 11 foot ceilings in my front room, though. Maybe I can grow these guys inside. I get almost too much sunlight there.

Alas, I had a spot all picked out with excellent sun, but my wife has just informed me that it will be taken over for roses. I'd protest, but she's been a real champ with understanding the pipe making obsession, and is currently working on my new website.

Perhaps my good natured release of this plot of land will be worth a few tins of vintage pipe weed, and/or an old lathe or two, or perhaps a blasting rig.

hazmat wrote:Robert.. if I wanted to give this a swing what types of seeds would you suggest starting off with? Or does it not matter so much with tobacco as it does with, say, house plants?

Depending on what kind of tobacco you like to smoke, I would probably at least try a Virginia and a Burley. But don't rule out other varieties.

Like, I found that Havana was really a big producer, and so long as it's processed like you would process Virginia, it tastes quite similar. I almost think of Havana as being like Virginia-on-steroids.

Also, how much direct afternoon sunlight is necessary for raising these plants up? My aparment faces east/west with the front facing west and the rear, the area I'd grow my plants, on the east. I get some nice morning-to-noon sunlight out on my patio area but not very much once the sun starts westering. I've been afraid to get anything started back there because I'm not real sure the sunlight I get is enough. I have 11 foot ceilings in my front room, though. Maybe I can grow these guys inside. I get almost too much sunlight there.

I think they do best with at least a few hours of direct sunlight a day. But I had some plants last year that did well without that much.

From my own limited experience, I think that having good mulchy, peaty soil is far more important for tobacco growth than how much direct sunlight each plant receives.

So, based on your second remark there, you would think I'd be alright cultivating where I intend to so long as I had good soil?

Have a soil formula and are 5-gallon buckets sufficient for growing plants? I'm thinking one plant per.

Thanks for your input on this!

I did the 5-gallon bucket routine a couple years ago and worked *great*! Go easy on the sprouting though - it's a little heartbreaking tossing out 95% of the sprouts when you replant into the buckets. Unless you've got an acre of buckets, that is.

hazmat wrote:So, based on your second remark there, you would think I'd be alright cultivating where I intend to so long as I had good soil?

Have a soil formula and are 5-gallon buckets sufficient for growing plants? I'm thinking one plant per.

Thanks for your input on this!

Sounds good to me. Take a look at this photo here.



It's hard to tell from the picture, but these Havana and Burley tobacco plants were grown in 5-gallon pots in a little courtyard area in back of my Girlfriend's place.

In addition to a couple tree limbs overhead, there are brick walls all around that blocked the sun for all but just a few hours a day.

I even had a few plants that were tucked up under the eaves a ways, and they still did fairly well with almost no direct sunlight. I had thought about juggling them around, but because they were doing as well as they were, I just didn't mess with them.

But these plants I'm standing next to in this picture eventually reached a height of over 10 feet, and I literally had to use a 6-foot ladder to harvest seeds for this year's crop.

Of course, it could have been that they grew to that height because they were reaching for more sunlight, but either way, I still had a pretty good harvest from them.

Ooooh. So your talking about tobacco plants! And I almost bought that bong on eBay.

Is "topping" a suggested exercise when growing these guys? Or are they better left to do what they will? I'm a little concerned with ignorant neighbors immediately thinking green stalks 10' high might be that "other" kind of homegrown "tobacco" and would like to avoid any investigative types from arriving on my property.

I think the suggested method of increasing leaf harvest is to snip the flowering part just before it blooms. That way the plant is left to concentrate on producing leaf rather than expending energy and nutrients on seeds.

That said, if you want seeds, definitely do not top the plant. The seeds and flowers only occur at the very top of the plant.

Gotcha, Kurt. This could become an interesting experiment. Mayhaps I should touch base with the neighbors I share a common backyard wall with and let them know it's only TOBACCO, pleast don't call the po-lice, thankee!

I'm hoping my seeds get here in the next day or so. I got a good few varieties. Va, Orientals even some Native American tobacco. The growing should be OK. Its the processing that I'm concerned about.

Nick wrote:I'm hoping my seeds get here in the next day or so. I got a good few varieties. Va, Orientals even some Native American tobacco. The growing should be OK. Its the processing that I'm concerned about.

Yeah, the processing is where the real voodoo comes in.

I have figured out a little bit. Like, I came out pretty well with the curing and aging, thus far. Currently, if I take a little of my tobacco from last year and work a little bit of either honey or molasses into it, it's a passable "English" style tobacco.

It needs a little more aging, though. But probably a little later this year, I will begin in earnest to develop a more sophisticated tobacco that will involve either some flavoring or possibly toasting over a wood fire.

But the processing is something where we are all going to have to compare notes from our various experiments and develop our processes as time goes along.

Well, I took the plunge too. I think I got carried away and ordered 15 types from Seedman... anything that mentioned pipe, and a few that didn't. At $2.20 a pack, whattya have to lose? I'll only try to sprout say 5 seeds of each, and pick the best of the litter to pot or plant directly in the ground. 15-20 plants is all I have room for. I'm excited, since I love growing things. Dang though, another time vacuum... I know I'm going to fawn over my darling plants daily. Robert, do you recommend Seedman's tobacco growing and processing book or is general gardening experience and web gleaning enough to get a firm roothold?

kbadkar wrote:Robert, do you recommend Seedman's tobacco growing and processing book or is general gardening experience and web gleaning enough to get a firm roothold?

I bought that book and skimmed through it, but I wasn't terribly impressed. It's a puzzling compilation of essays by Jim Johnson and Alan Daly, who end up contradicting each other on several points.

And like half the book is dedicated a study of the various types of insects that attack tobacco. All of that could have been condensed into: "Several kinds of bugs like to eat tobacco."

It's been awhile since I went through that book, but I personally think it's a waste of money. There's a lot more, and a lot better, information available from various internet resources.

Just a few links to enjoy....

(Please forgive any that have been posted before)

http://www.howtogrowtobacco.com/forums/index.php

http://www.coffinails.com/forums/

http://www.saveseeds.org/library/books/ ... _1897.html (Perique curing from 1897)

http://www.tobaccofarmlifemuseum.org/

http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/cameron/cameron.html (reprint of 1881 book on tobacco industry and methods, growing methods start on page 82)

http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/historyficti ... ch=tobacco (Items used to grow tobacco, some with little videos of their use)

I've got more if I haven't bored y'all to death yet.

i done took the plunge also. i remember having a social studies teacher many years ago that grew his own tobacco for cigarettes. i don't know why he told us (at the time in 7th grade) about it...

i got some havana, Connecticut shade, burley and virginia gold. I'll probably only do one plant of each and see how it goes. I might try rolling up a few cigars with the havana/connecticut. this oughta be fun!

thanks for the inspiration.

i might be a little late but i don't think it's done freezing in iowa quite yet!