Having a go at growing in the UK

[whalen]

Squeezyjohn - http://fairtradetobacco.com/forum.php

good resource for all things tobacco growing. God speed!

[squeezyjohn]

Well - summer appears to have re-started here in the UK - only 2 months late!

My plants are all out in the allotment and have been for a while. The commercial type "Black Mammoth" has stayed pretty small in the unusually cold June we had but hopefully they've made a bit of a root network to take advantage of the heat to come.

The rustica plants have grown much more like a weed! They are all tall (but only about a foot and a half which I think is about the height they get) - they have already started to make flower buds which I am in the process of pinching out in the hope of a bit more leaf growth. I wish I'd grown more of them as it looks like each plant makes a pretty small amount of leaf. Next time I will plant them much closer together as it's pretty clear that rustica doesn't need a 1 metre spacing - there's no way their roots are anywhere near each other at the moment!

Fingers crossed for the Black Mammoths though - it's supposed to be a traditional chewing tobacco and others have had success with it here so I'm still hopeful.

Cheers

Squeezy

[Skell18]

Well - summer appears to have re-started here in the UK - only 2 months late!

My plants are all out in the allotment and have been for a while. The commercial type "Black Mammoth" has stayed pretty small in the unusually cold June we had but hopefully they've made a bit of a root network to take advantage of the heat to come.

The rustica plants have grown much more like a weed! They are all tall (but only about a foot and a half which I think is about the height they get) - they have already started to make flower buds which I am in the process of pinching out in the hope of a bit more leaf growth. I wish I'd grown more of them as it looks like each plant makes a pretty small amount of leaf. Next time I will plant them much closer together as it's pretty clear that rustica doesn't need a 1 metre spacing - there's no way their roots are anywhere near each other at the moment!

Fingers crossed for the Black Mammoths though - it's supposed to be a traditional chewing tobacco and others have had success with it here so I'm still hopeful.

Cheers

Squeezy

sounds promising mate, although I have a feeling we may get a week of nice weather then normal service will resume. Hope it all works out

[whalen]

Rustica two feet, keep the flowers off and it will just try harder! Mine tried for two more months and developed nicely after first flowers.

[squeezyjohn]

Thanks again Whalen! I loved the link you gave for the Fair Trade Tobacco forum by the way - a great site.

I lurked there for a while reading all the info available before pitching in and asking questions ... unfortunately it seems as if they have banned my IP address for some reason and now I can't even contact the admin to ask to have it revoked so I can sign up.

Hey ho!

Squeezy

[whalen]

Sorry to hear that! I can put in a word with the site owner! If snuson does this I am a goner! Good luck with the grow and please update, I am following this grow with fingers crossed. Rustica is a true weed, tough as nails after it gets started.

[squeezyjohn]

Hi Whalen - it must have just been a temporary blip, I've registered there now and will get stuck in!

[whalen]

Hi Whalen - it must have just been a temporary blip, I've registered there now and will get stuck in!

I sent an email to the owner who said he would look into it, and it appears he did! My advice to all who starts growing is to start learning about how you will need to cure the crop. As it seems growing is actually the easy part, the tasks ahead will be the ones to determine the actual suitability of the leaf for consumption. Curing is key to everything, especially right as you harvest, I strongly suggest you try the whole plant method of hanging it out of the sun to try to color cure it as slow as possible. I harvested my crop last year in late October during a huge snowstorm, so grow as long as you can!

I want to encourage you to invest the time in gathering what knowledge you can from the site, there are a lot of "colorful" characters there who are at first take rather "redneck", but there are many among them who have put in the time and learned a great deal. I have found another site as well...http://tobaccotalk.myfastforum.org/index.php

Hope the sun shines well for you!

[squeezyjohn]

I'm sure you are correct Whalen!

I have looked in to it in quite a lot of detail already and have built a shed/barn on the allotment which could take a huge weight from the beams if needed and the necessary equipment to heat it and regulate humidity (well - sort of) if needed too.

We had an amazing warm indian summer last October. Fingers crossed for the same again!

Squeezy

[whalen]

Warm sunny thought's to you my friend!

[squeezyjohn]

Well! It would appear that there's some kind of problems over on the fair trade tobacco forums which bans my IP address every few days ... so I will give a little update on my first UK growing season.

Rustica is a true weed and ever since it got in the ground has been rocketing up and is now about 3 foot tall with some nice big leaves on each plant. The Black Stalk Mammoth is a different kettle of fish though ... it should be bigger than the Rustica, but has just not started to get tall at all - to be fair I have been mucking it around and have transplanted 4 plants from my garden to the allotment.


Above is a picture of a few of the Rustica plants.

The other bit of news is that some of the leaves at the bottom of the plants were damaged or had snapped off - the ones that had broken have cured themselves brown on the plant so I had a little chew on one and it certainly has nicotine in it! There's no mistaking that, and Rustica just straight is a fairly mild, slightly bitter tasting tobacco. I also tried a green leaf and that too has nicotine in it - but tastes very interesting indeed, it's quite juicy and vegetably - but it's pretty hard to keep in your mouth like that!

I have taken the damaged leaves of the Rustica (like priming but with much smaller leaves) and strung them up in the shed to see how they dry in there with the sort of weather we're having here (still pretty wet on occasions but warmer now). I'll let you know how that gets on.

What I do know is that I've learnt a lot for next year. Rustica (if that's what you want) is easy once you get it started - just plant out about a foot and a half apart in a sunny spot and it will just get on with itself - take the suckers (sideshoots) out often and let it flower at the top and it gives broad green leaves just over a foot long. I will try the Black Mammoth again next year - but will certainly be less afraid to plant it out earlier - this has been the worst summer for growing anything I can remember in the UK so I'm not so disheartened. I will also try to get hold of some other seeds, maybe dark Burley or Stags Horn and see how that does.

Onwards and Upwards!

[whalen]

Good to hear progress reports, my plants are growing at an impressive rate. Not so many as i still have a basement full at the moment. I have been acquiring various pounds of tobacco from the growers on the Fair trade site. One of the first things I did was get a large amount of Dark air cured for making snuff, snus, ect. Good to have a basic slug of tobacco in reserve. These guys have some extremely fine leaf, I mean top A+ tobacco. I think i have at least 12 varieties to blend with now.

I would plant a couple of rows of Rustica next year. You should let one go to seed.

[Mr. Snuffleupagus]

Looks good Squeezy!

[squeezyjohn]

Good to hear progress reports, my plants are growing at an impressive rate. Not so many as i still have a basement full at the moment. I have been acquiring various pounds of tobacco from the growers on the Fair trade site. One of the first things I did was get a large amount of Dark air cured for making snuff, snus, ect. Good to have a basic slug of tobacco in reserve. These guys have some extremely fine leaf, I mean top A+ tobacco. I think i have at least 12 varieties to blend with now.

I would certainly look in to doing that myself but I can't access that site due to my IP being banned for whatever reason. It is annoying that such a good forum is practically inaccessible to me. I don't think I've said anything out of turn!

I would plant a couple of rows of Rustica next year. You should let one go to seed.

They're all almost there, Whalen! Lots of the flowers have made green seed pods already. Do you think I should top the more developed plants? The one I topped too early has just tried to make flowers from every possible position and given up on the leaves which are tiny. I don't think they can have crossed with anything - I haven't seen a single ornamental tobacco plant on the whole allotment.

The sad thing is that Rustica is basically just a nicotine machine for blending really isn't it - it doesn't have any of that rich flavour I'm after.

[squeezyjohn]

Looks good Squeezy!

At risk of sounding like Big Bird...

"Aww thanks Snuffy!"