And maybe it should be time for those who can do it, to start some tobacco plantations... From this website, the best period to plant tobacco should be December [in the UK]. This article looks relevant for anyone wants to know how produce his own tobacco:
GROWING, CURING, FLAVOURING AND FINISHING TOBACCO FOR CIGARETTES (2013 version)
And many others informations (history, cigarette making process, kind of tobacco, videos, pic...)
And here:
GROWING, CURING, FLAVOURING AND FINISHING TOBACCO FOR CIGARETTES (2013 version)
And many others informations (history, cigarette making process, kind of tobacco, videos, pic...)
[...] December in the UK is the time to prepare your planting plot for next spring. I should really start with ‘preparing your plot’, but it is understandable that people want to start with buying the seeds! So we will start with that, and think of the plot next.
[From time to time, I will name organisations and suppliers. I have no connection with these organisations at all, and so I am not plugging any of them. If a name pops into my head, I might mention it]
I obtained my first supply of seeds from Coffinails via the internet. That was in February-ish 2011. I paid about £10 for a special offer of three varieties of cigarette tobacco plant. The varieties were Virginia, Maryland 609 and Monte Calme Yellow. Each has slight differences, but only marginal differences, in characteristics. Each little pack had over 200 seeds each, since the seeds are very small – about ½ a millimetre across. Amazing, isn’t it, that the plants grow over 5’ tall! The seeds came with instructions on how to germinate them and how to care for the seedlings, along with advice about tending the plants once they are planted out, plus advice about curing. Different parts of the world will have different climactic conditions and so it is not possible to recommend any particular varieties. It would be best to check the various sellers of seeds on the internet.
So it is January, and you have seeds to germinate, but you are not too sure how best to proceed. Heated propagator? Ordinary propagator? No propagator (sow directly into pots)?
GERMINATING THE SEEDS
Here is a tip. The seeds are extremely small, and so it is difficult to sow them in small numbers. What I did was to shake some seeds out of the packet onto a sheet of plain, white paper. A4 size should do. It is thus much easier to see the seeds. My pots/propagator were already prepared, so it was an easy matter to separate small groups of seeds from the pile (I didn’t actually count the seeds – probably about ten). I brushed/shoved the little group onto another sheet of paper and, from there, into each pot in turn one pot at a time. Don’t forget to observe closely which pot/section of the propagator you have just done! I use a little stick which I move from compartment to compartment of the propagator as I go along. The seeds do not need to be buried – just let them fall onto the surface of the soil/compost.
Unfortunately, at the beginning, I personally had a disaster. I sowed my first seeds into an ordinary propagator (with 40 small, individual sections). I was already late since I knew no better, it being around March. It turned out that the compost that I was using was ‘sour’. That is, it had been lying in the garage for years and had dried out completely, thus rendering it very concentrated and acidic. The seeds germinated ok, but died a week or so after germination. It was only when I remembered that lupin seeds had suffered the same fate that I realized that it was the compost that was the problem. I started again with brand new ‘seeding and cuttings’ compost, and, this time, there was no problem – the seeds germinated and thrived. [...]
And here:
[...] PREPARING YOUR PLOT
There are three possibilities that occur to me.
1. You live in a flat or apartment without balcony
2. You live in a flat with balcony, or you live in a ‘maisonette’ or house with very little garden space.
3. You live in a house with sufficient garden space to create tobacco plots.
In case 1, you have no alternative but to grow tobacco plants within your home. In that case, the only limitation upon how many tobacco plants you should grow is how much space, within your home, you are prepared to grant to the plants. They are big plants. That is for you to decide. But there is no reason that they should not grow and prosper that I know of, even if you only have one plant. But be aware that one plant will produce very little tobacco. If you are really, really lucky and your plant really, really does well, you might get 50 – 100 fags from it. That figure is an educated guess, because I do not really know at this time. What I do know is that my plantation has produced about 300 fags at best, and I had quite a lot of decent sized leaves. The problem is that, no matter how wonderfully big your leaves might appear to be as they grow, when you dry them and cure them, they will shrink and shrink. That is because they are about 70% water.
But do not be deterred! You need experience! In your first year, especially, you must take it as it comes. A lot depends upon how much you smoke, with all the implications which come with that thought.
As an experiment, I grew three plants indoors as an experiment. They have grown through their cycle and have flowered and are going to seed. The only thing is that the leaves were very small compared with the same plants outdoors. I have, as yet, no answer to the question of why this should be so.
In case 2, tobacco plants will grow happily in buckets. Remember that tobacco plants are, generally speaking, ‘annuals’. That is, that they have to be started from scratch from seeds every year. [...]
I have since learnt that there are important considerations when growing plants in buckets. First, the growing medium (the ‘soil’ in the bucket) must be loose enough not to become compacted. Ordinary garden soil is too ‘dense’ in itself. In such a dense medium, especially when confined in a bucket, the roots of the plants cannot push their way into the soil. Try mixing compost, soil, twigs, stones and vegetative material. the important thing is to avoid compaction. But it must be said that growing plants indoors, although not difficult, will not produce big leaves. I do not know, but I understand from what I have been told is that the problem is THE LIGHT. Wherever you put plants indoors, they will spend most of their time in partial shade. Thus, in effect, they will be deprived of ‘food’ (since sunlight is ‘food’ to tobacco plant leaves). Frankly, I do not think that it is worthwhile trying to grow them indoors. People who have no garden, or at least a balcony, might consider acquiring ready-cured leaves via the internet, if you live in a place where there is no law against it. Most places do not have a law against it. And they can be quite inexpensive. Use your brain and google the right words – you know, ‘whole’ and ‘leaf’ and the other word.
In case 3, the whole situation changes. It all depends upon how much of your garden you are prepared to ‘sacrifice’. I am talking about replacing pretty flowers with a cash crop! In my own case, I found that I had an area which was ‘available’, provided that I did the work involved in clearing the area. Since I was quite ignorant of what to expect in terms of the produce which would result from my plantings, I assumed that a plot of some 18 feet by 5 feet, sufficient for 30 plants, would produce an enormous amount of tobacco. Oh dear! Not so.
In the first place, the big tobacco-plant leaves shrink like nobody’s business when they are dried and cured. That is a matter of fact and must be accepted. One must accept that 70% or so of the leaves is water. Thus, if you remove the water, you are reducing the volume of the leaves by 70%. But sites that I have looked at suggest that about 20% of the water remains in the leaves during the curing process, provided that temperature etc are carefully controlled. Whatever, your leaves will shrink a lot.
In cases 1 and 2, there is no plot preparation problem since there is no plot. Essentially, you just grow your seedlings until they are reasonably big and then bung them in buckets full of compost. No problem. But in case 3, in order to produce the best yield, it is worth your while to give the matter of plot preparation some consideration. [...]
