Yesterday. Six days after planting:
Today (Can't hardly see 'em, though!)
A close up
Looks like about 12 of 16 started. The other four seem to just need a bit more water.
SheLion, here's the first.
If you keep them cool (not frozen) and dry they should keep for a year or more.
Will regular tap water work, or will I have to use distilled or rainwater?
Tap water will do in a pinch. Distilled or rain water will likely contain fewer contaminants.
Fluorescent lighting. Will it work well for staggered stage growing year-round?
For starting the seeds it will be fine. Keep it close to the seedlings or they are likely to get "leggy". Raise it as they grow. As another Freeper suggested, they will need to be transplanted outdoors in order for them to flourish. A fluorescent bulb will not provide enough lumen's to insure that lower leaves receive the light they need.
Humidity?
Too much and the plants are likely to develop fungal / bacterial problems. Too little (combined with inadequate watering) and they will wilt.
Someone told me that nicotine is a natural insect repellant. Is this true?
True. Nicotine sulfate is a poison. A crude insecticide can be made by soaking tobacco leaves in water (as one would make sun tea).
What's the best soil to use?
Any normal fortified seed starting mix will be fine. As the plants grow macro (N,P,K) and micro nutrients will be required in sufficient quantities. They can be incorporated into the soil prior to transplanting. Signs of nutrient deficiency will indicate one or more is lacking. You can probably google up pictures of this if necessary.
How long should it be before something actually grows?
If the seeds are not covered too deeply, I'd expect to see initial signs of growth in a week or less.
Watch out for the grow lamps. The electric company watches for electricity usage increases consistent with running grow lamps, and notifies the government, who then sends in the DEA to bust down your door and possibly murder you without you ever having had a chance to tell them that what you're doing is perfectly legal.
I don't know that you need to go to the trouble of starting them indoors, I always just sowed the seeds directly on the soil. You don't want to cover them with soil as the germination is triggered by light. No special soil, no special water.
Don't know what part of the country you live in but the plants are partal to humidity and heat, obviously, as most tobacco is grown in the south.
Once the plants are growing you need to watch for, and remove, the sucker shoots. Just like growing tomatos.
The drying process is the most critical, IMO. As someone posted earlier, you tie the leaves on to a stick so they get enough air around them to prevent them from molding. Hang them in a dark, dry, room. Tobacoo barns used to have big furnaces in them and the sticks would be hung on rafters all the way to the top of the barn.
Once dry and after you have cleaned the tobacco off the leaves it will probably be too dry to smoke. You should get a humidor to put the tobacco in and add a tiny piece of orange peel to add a little moisture back to the tobacco.
This link has quite a few photos:
http://www.webshots.com/search?new=1&source=mdocsheader&words=drying+tobacco
Growing is easy, it's the eternity of curing that'll get you back to buying the stuff.
Hummmmm, this is interesting. I gave up cigarettes 11 years ago but husband still smokes a pipe. Growing tabacco for his pipe just might be a solution to the cost of pipe tabacco.
Seeds will germinate in less than ten days if conditions are right. Warm, wet, and flooded with light. If they don't produce a visible plant within 10 days, they need more light.
Explain again how one saves money by taking hours and hours to grow their own?
Where did you get the seeds?
My dads side of the family farmed in Mt Sterling, Kentucky. Tobacco was a primary crop. Air dried and hand rolled. It was the reason my dad even smoked in the first place. He did quit, but grandpa rolled to the day he died.
Don't forget the additives or you'll be smoking harsh city.
Asian deer tongue extract, concentrated essence of camel dung, and dried ground ferret musk glands are good for starters.
During the Second World War, rationing and shortages made many people in Britain grow their own tobacco. One of the most famous was a vicar, who grew his behind the church.
No ill-effects due to home growing reported.
Regards, Ivan
Finally I just decided that it would really screw 'em if I just quit. So I did. Two months ago.
The hell with them.
Until you start growing some Pinar del Rio gold, with some Cameroon for the wrapper, I aint buying.
Sounds like Burley to me. American cigarettes are a blend. Burley all by itself will smoke extremely harsh - worse than a Class B Picayune cigarette. You will not like it.
Best to simply give it all up. Save the money you would have spent on smokes ...and within a few years ...pay cash for something real nice (if prices keep going up maybe a ...Lexus).
