8/2/2019 Your Tobacco Growing Guide
1/5
Your Guide to Growing and Processing Tobacco at Home
A Free Guide Bought to You by
Virginia Tobacco is one of the hardiest plants around, it will grow almost anywhere and
in most soil types. There are many methods of curing tobacco to improve the avour,yet a ne smoke can be achieved with very little fuss. This guide will teach you how to
grow, harvest and cure your tobacco in the simplest way. Once youve got the basics
right well let you in on many of the secrets used to create some of the nest tobacco in
the world.
obaccoPlants.co.ukT
8/2/2019 Your Tobacco Growing Guide
2/5
What You Need To Produce Your Own Tobacco.
1. Somewhere to grow your plants. Your plants need to be planted with a minimum spacing of 2ft
between plants and rows; ideally just over 1m square per plant should be used. Tobacco plants grow well in
a wide variety of soil types and are not fussy about where they grow, however you will get a better crop if you
use a rich soil that has plenty of organic matter dug into it. Avoiding heavy clay soil types is also a good idea;
however this can be remedied by incorporating peat or other organic matter into your soil. Tobacco plants
prefer full sun but will grow well in partial shade too. A full grown tobacco plant can be 7ft tall but willusually support itself as long as the area is not too windy, canes can be used if your plants seam at risk of
blowing over. If you dont have any ground to plant your plants a 12 litre pot per plant, lled with
multipurpose compost will do just ne.
2. Somewhere to dry and cure your plants - a loft, shed, garage or shaded greenhouse will do just ne.
Of course you can get more equipment such as curing chambers and leaf shredders but the above is just ne
to get you started and can produce great results.
How Many Plants Should I grow?
Ideally youll want to grow enough
tobacco for over a years supply. This
is because you will get one crop per
year and tobacco improves in avour
the longer it is cured. Each mature
tobacco plant will yield around 100g
of dried tobacco so around 16 plants
will be perfectly adequate for most
smokers. If you cant t this many
plants in simply plant them a little
closer together and t in as many asyou have room for. Caring for your tobacco
plants...Once your tobacco plants arrive in late spring/early summer, plant
them straight out into your prepared bed. After a couple of weeks
they will be well established and should be growing well. At this
stage you may start to feed your plants with a nitrogen based
fertiliser, dont use tomato feed as this will encourage owers and
not leaves. If you have good, fertile soil you may not need to feed atall. Always stop feeding your plants as you see ower buds forming,
this is to make sure the nitrogen level is not too high when it comes
to curing as too higher nitrogen levels can aect the chemical
processes that need to take place. Your plants are likely to grow side
shoots, these should be taken out to allow the plants energy to be
concentrated towards the larger leaves that you will use. When the
ower heads form these should also be removed. Other than this
just make sure your plants dont get too dry and youll have
ourishing specimens in no time.
PestsTobacco plants are very resilient to pests, it is advised to go organic and only use warm water sprayed from
a mist spray if you do see any pests however this is very unlikely. The only pests that may be a real problem
are slugs and snails; these should be removed on site. You should also make sure that there are no piles of
rubbish close to your plants as these may harbour hungry pests.
8/2/2019 Your Tobacco Growing Guide
3/5
When picking your leaves take your time and pick the leaves
as they ripen. Around the time that ower heads start to form
and the plants are fully grown the bottom leaves will start to
turn yellow, this shows that they are ready to pick. This should
be around 90 days after planting out. If they start yellowing
before this pick them straight away.
It is best if you can pick your leaves in dry weather. The lowest
leaves that have been near the soil may be too damaged or
muddy to use so should be discarded or kept separate, this
prevents fungal infections at a later date.
Take the leaves, cut a slit near the butt end of the centre rib of
each leaf, feed a thin cane or similar through these slits so that
the leaves hang down about an inch apart. Hang these stickssomewhere dry, out of the way and preferably warm. An attic,
a dry shed or garage are ne for this. Keep picking the leaves
over the coming few weeks until your plants have only a few
leaves left. At this point the whole plant may be cut and hung
in the same way.
Time for
harvesting yourtobacco...
8/2/2019 Your Tobacco Growing Guide
4/5
Curing Your Tobacco Leaves
Many complex processes
have been developed for
curing tobacco, and these do
improve the avour, however,
curing tobacco is simply the
process of drying your leavesin a moderately controlled
environment. Over time you
can learn and develop these
processes to enhance the end
result, but you dont have to.
You can make a perfectly
acceptable product by just
drying the leaves adequately,
slicing them thinly and rolling
them in cigarette paper.
If the place you have chosen to hang your leaves is warm, dry but humid, preferably dark and airy your
tobacco will cure here just ne. Check your leaves occasionally to see that they haven't moved too close
together on their sticks, this will prevent air owing around them and put them at risk of mould. Also check
for and remove mould if you do spot any.
The reason you want a humid environment is so that your leaves dont become too dry and brittle. Your
leaves will turn from green and yellow to orange and brown over the space of a week or so. When your
leaves dry too quickly this colour curing may be inhibited. If this does occur move your leaves to somewhere
cooler, you can also lightly spray them using a very ne mist spray. This will allow your leaves to become
pliable and carry on curing properly. Once your leaves have been hung for 4-5 weeks you will nd that theymake a rather pleasant smoke, however the longer you hang them the better they will be so only take what
you want to use, leaving the rest to carry on curing. Once the leaves are almost completely dry you can
bunch and tie a dozen or so leaves together in what are called hands, the leaves can be hung this way,
curing and improving for many years.
Preparing The End Product
Take a leaf and strip out the centre rib and any large side ribs,
repeat for several leaves until you have a reasonable handful.
Squeeze the leaves together into a tight bundle and using a verysharp knife and a chopping board slice the tobacco as thinly as
you can. To improve upon this method you can use a C-clamp and
a wooden box with a piece of wood that will slide into the box.
Place the leaves in the box, place the wood on top of it and apply
the C-clamp. You can tighten it up a few turns every day for a few
days, you will then get a block of tobacco with even moisture
distribution that is much easier to cut nely. Once chopped you
can put your tobacco in a pouch or tin ready for rolling and
smoking. There are many cutting machines on the market and you
may even have success with a pasta maker or blender.
Once you have these basics right you can experiment with
dierent curing methods, or enhancing the avour in other ways
such as dissolving a little honey in a couple of teaspoons of
alcohol and adding it to your tobacco.
8/2/2019 Your Tobacco Growing Guide
5/5
Disclaimer:
The Little Tree Company, its aliates, sta and management take no responsibility for any losses caused
through the use of our products whatsoever. All health implications of using our products are the
responsibility of the user. We make no claim to the properties of our plants or uses of plants sold. Our plants
are sold as novelty items and no claim is made to the success of their growth or produce to be yielded once
dispatched to the customer. We take no responsibility for taxes or duty to be paid on the production of
tobacco products, or any other products created with use of our products. It is the customers responsibility
to adhere to all tax, duty and packaging obligations commensurate to producing tobacco products.
Copyright:
All copy and images on www.tobaccoplants.co.uk and related materials are the property of The Little TreeCompany and may not be copied or redistributed without the explicit consent of The Little Tree Company.
The Little Tree Company 2010
This guide was bought to you by...
For email support on growing your own tobacco at home
simply contact us at [email protected].
obaccoPlants.co.ukT
www.tobaccoplants.co.uk
little treecompanyt
he
www.thelittletreecompany.com