Your Guide to Growing and Processing Tobacco at Home

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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.

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 will usually 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 as you 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 at all. 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 a ect 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.

Pests Tobacco 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.

Time for harvesting your tobacco...

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 sticks somewhere 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.

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 leaves in 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 they make 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 very sharp 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 di erent 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.

For email support on growing your own tobacco at home simply contact us at support@tobaccoplants.co.uk.

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Disclaimer: The Little Tree Company, its a liates, 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.

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