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I've read this thread with interest,just bought some GV seeds from Ebay and will be trying it out next year.....i'm glad you've noticed the same thing as me MKG on all the baccy forums.......advice and methods vary greatly!Didn't know whether i was coming or going after reading some of them!So how was everyones crop in the end?

I'm in two minds (as usual ).

The crop was good - I have a lot of tobacco leaves. I have LOADS of tobacco leaves. And I was right about the colour curing - the leaves which dry the darkest brown do have the most nicotine, and the leaves which dry almost yellow have virtually no nicotine. The received wisdom is to mix the two, BUT, BUT, BUT, even the darkest brown leaves, I feel, have only the nicotine content of standard shop-bought tobacco. Mixing would produce something along the lines of extra-mild tobacco - something which leaves me a quivering wreck.

I'm hoping that other received advice - specifically that tobacco accustoms itself to local conditions and next year's crop will be better than this year's crop - is true, given that I got only two or three leaves per plant which attained the darkest brown colour-cure.

The other thing I gathered was that the "good" leaves are those which take on an "alligator-skin" appearance. Not being used to alligators in my ponds, I wasn't sure about this. But it appears to be true too. The "good" leaves were, in fact, the ones which had developed a rumpled and bubbly appearance (that's the best description I can give).

The other thing I've noticed is that the taste of dried but otherwise uncured tobacco (i.e. not fermented in a kiln) is not unpleasant. It's very different, but I quickly got used to that given that the "bite" on the throat was definitely there.

All in all, it was a worthwhile experiment out of which I got probably a couple of month's worth of usable tobacco. OK for a first attempt and certainly worth continuing next year.

So ...

Transplant your seedlings early. They look so fragile at only 1/4 of an inch high, but they're tough buggers and suffer no harm. They may take a bit of a check at this stage, but it's nothing like the check they'll take if you try it later.

Get them hardened off ASAP - you need as much growing time as possible - and plant out after any threat of frost has gone.

When they're established, water them well - then water them again. They LOVE water. Oh - and get some stakes in the plot if you live in a windy area. These plants grow - and grow - and grow.

Use a general-purpose fertiliser up until the point at which they try to flower - then stop. This, apparently, forces nicotine concentration. When they do start to form buds, pinch them off mercilessly. While you're at it, pinch off the side shoots which will begin to appear in much the same places you'd expect with tomatoes. Don't stop there, because they'll keep throwing buds, side shoots, and even suckers from the base of the plant. Get rid of them all - at regular intervals.

All the time you've been doing this, keep your eyes on the leaves and take out any which begin to show signs of yellowing (usually bottom to top). Continue to do this throughout the season. Hang up any such leaves - upside down - in a dry, airy place where they will happily dry.

Continue to harvest leaves until either there's a threat of frost or the plant begins to look tired, at which point uproot the entire plant, chop off the root, and hang the plant upside down in the same dry, airy place.

Check your hanging stock at regular intervals. Some leaves will colour cure completely to a shade of brown. Others will retain a bit of green. If that's the case, mist them lightly with a water spray. All green will, eventually, disappear.

That's it, unless you want to go into the realms of building a curing kiln (but I'm told that this process reduces nicotine content - I haven't done it). I have noticed that the leaves dry in accordance with nicotine content. The earliest leaves (very little nicotine) dry light yellow and very dry - you can crumble them in your hand. The later dark brown leaves (especially those harvested after potential flowering) retain a flexibility - you can open them out without them falling to bits.

That's just about all I've learned. Over and out.

Mike

Thanks Mike for that because I have a number of questions and some are not answered here.

I have 3 lots hanging up drying - the first lot is now brown and brittle and was from the lowest leaves. They are all about a medium brown.

Now that they are really dry is that too dry? If I crunch it all up to rollable tobacco won't that be too dry, given that bought shredded baccy is moist? I feel it might just fall out of the cigarette or all burst into flames!

I have not harvested any more leaves as (1) two out of the 3 plants are flowering now cos I went on hols and the flowers are really pretty and (2) lower leaves have rust (common in my veg patch) but the rest of the leaves are very mottled yellow and green, so didn't know if they had got a disease or not.

Also it's hard to dry them without them going slimey/mouldy as I really need to hang no more than about 5 leaves at a time and we are pushed for space with poor hubby having to duck under them to get around the barn. There is absolutely no room inside the house or anywhere to hang them indoors really as I have mucho produce dotted about windowsills and the living room floor.

Also are you drying them in the sun as we have been putting them out in the open air when hubby opens up the barn to get sunlight (if applicable ) on them?

Strangely enough although I have a dry garden my plants haven't needed much watering at all, probably cos the veg patch is so full of compost and good things which retain moisture and the marigolds there are 4 times the size of the ones I planted out in flower beds.

Oh and I only want the lowest of the low nicotine content as that's what I smoke so that is fine by me!!

Thanks for that MKG,i will copy paste it into a document if you don't mind so i don't have to trawl for it next year x

I still don't know how to turn my hanging up tobacco into something I can smoke and how to store it! Oh well will have to go google trawling.

It sounds like you can just crumble all the leaf off the stalk MMM.

The slugs ate mine!

Don't worry I've been youtubing and now I need a pasta maker to shred it! Mine's not actually as crumbly as I thought so I think I am going to try rolling it up and slice it very thinly with a stanley knife/scalpel. Dying to try it though I hate roll ups but I have bought some filters so that may help a lot. Haven't got a lot but if it is smokeable then I will grow more next year and pay a bit more attention to it.

Boboff are your slugs now addicted?

It's all the slug phlegm in the morning I object to!

When I was on hols in a wet part of France (we had fine weather there though luckily!) I encountered one of those HUGE slugs on the patio and took about 15 photo of it, then it had a gigantic poop so I took a photo of that too. Saddo that I am, but I don't (luckily) see that kind of critter where I live!

Do they have huge slugs in france MMM? How big are we talking?i hate the english ones as it is! urrgghhh!

It was about 4" long and I have seen these 'hole in the head' ones once before, in another part of France where I lived, but only one year.

I don't want these ones near my plants!

Something has changed on the forum - that photo should be miles bigger than that!

That means I can't copy any of my photos onto the forum any more - well not in a way that you can see decently.

Edit: It's done it elsewhere, so it's a Picasa change not to do with the forum. Well it's pointless me having a Picasa account if I can't show my photos off on forums any more, that was the whole point of it - it saved me having to physically reduce my photos which saved oodles of time!