cigarillofingers Grow Blog 2025

[cigarillofingers]

Good morning from the UK!

Going to document my growing season which after a few exploratory plants in pots last year I've got more germinated and growing on for 2025. However, originally I was going to be growing on an allotment but over the winter I took the decision to give the allotment up as between work and family life I didn't have the time to dedicate to it. So it's a scaled back grow however I am thinking of doing a bit of guerrilla growing because I have so many bloody seedlings! I have a few places within a 10-15 walk that I can plant in. In the back garden I'm going with 30L pots and half a raised bed for the oriental.

Growing Basma, Burley and Virginia n.2 from the tobacco seed company.

Also growing some nicotiana for the garden this year which should be interesting!

 

[Faltown]

Fellow UK grower here. In regards to gorilla planting, I did similar, but on a piece of land I own. I can only get there every 3 or four days, and on my first visit after planting, every single one of these was eaten to the ground by slugs!

Hope you find somewhere better than I for your grow!

 

[cigarillofingers]

Fellow UK grower here. In regards to gorilla planting, I did similar, but on a piece of land I own. I can only get there every 3 or four days, and on my first visit after planting, every single one of these was eaten to the ground by slugs!

Hope you find somewhere better than I for your grow! View attachment 55179

Oh no! That's such a shame! Was this last year or this year?

 

[deluxestogie]

Also growing some nicotiana for the garden this year which should be interesting!

All varieties of smoking tobacco are Nicotiana tabacum. I'm not sure what you are "also" growing.

Bob

 

[Alpine]

I bet flowering nicotianas like N. sylvestris or N. clevelandii or something in that ballpark…

pier

 

[cigarillofingers]

I bet flowering nicotianas like N. sylvestris or N. clevelandii or something in that ballpark…

pier

They are indeed N.Sylvestris!

I've only ever heard people refer to them as Nicotiana plants and it's what Monty Don calls them and he's the gardening oracle.

 

[Faltown]

Oh no! That's such a shame! Was this last year or this year?

Last year. I think even if I'd been they alot more, so much habitat for slugs that it would of been constant hunting!

Was my first time growing, and I put about 60% of my plants there, so I guess my advice would be grow as much as you can at home, and then any extra your happy to loose try gorilla planting!

 

[cigarillofingers]

Last year. I think even if I'd been they alot more, so much habitat for slugs that it would of been constant hunting!

Was my first time growing, and I put about 60% of my plants there, so I guess my advice would be grow as much as you can at home, and then any extra your happy to loose try gorilla planting!

Yeah that's the plan. The stuff planted away from the house is just a see what is what and go from there. I'll have to colour cure in my attic in a terrace house so I'm limited on space anyways so I can't do much with any more than 10 plants worth of leaf of Burley/Virginia.

Last year with how wet it was was particularly brutal for slugs and I ended up giving up a lot of my growing as you could never get ahead of them! Hopefully this season you have more luck!

 

[cigarillofingers]

Some sunny weather here in South Yorkshire and a few plants were moved outside to the pop-up greenhouse yesterday during the rain. All are doing well in their pots and have recovered from 'the droop'. Still got a fair few indoors on a windowsill but I think they'll go out over the next few days.

I've got the pot mix together and over the easter weekend in between the bank holiday drinking I'll mix up the container mix. All sourced from B&Q here in the UK as I had a voucher. I have a big bag of compost, a few bags of topsoil, horticultural grit and sand and from the hydroponics shop x4 bricks of coco coir as peat is banned in compost here makes a good enough alternative to act as a water retention aid. Mix it all up in a tarp and then pop the plants in. I am going to be using 4-4-4 top dress fertiliser and they'll get an application every couple/three weeks or so and also boost with a liquid seaweed feritiliser that goes on the rest of the garden.

 

[cigarillofingers]

Managed to get some plants potted up into final pots. Turns out you do too much drinking over a double bank holiday weekend to do much potting on!

Happy with my container mix and should strike a good balance between medium and aeration for the roots with the sand, grit and coir. My next lot are Virginia's and they are going in big fabric sacks had great results with tomatoes last year in them but they won't go in for a few days as I need more medium!
Nearly killed off my Basma by forgetting about it however I give it a root drench with some liquid seaweed and humic acid and they've returned from the dead! Still much too small to plant out in the bed which still has various pieces of detritus covering it!

 

[cigarillofingers]

So the plants have been in pots now for some a month. They're starting to pack on some mass and spread their leaves.

A few set backs, a badger ratched the small greenhouse over and pretty much destroyed half my seedlings so the guerilla grow idea is put off for another year. Lost some of my tomato's and early courgettes in the attack as well. They will be missed and we must never forget!

Growing has been pretty hands off, I've lost about 4 plants to slugs but had back ups. Feed wise they've had weekly alfalfa sprout tea and some lucky plants even get a top dressing with the whizzed alfalfa sprouts. Every 2 weeks each pot has had a couple tablespoons of 4-4-4 organic mix from Dr Forest. They've also had regular maxicrop liquid seaweed fertiliser. All of which is my normal veg garden/flower garden routine so they've been a pleasure to have and no bother.

Burley definitely enjoys being in a pot better than the Golden Virginia. The Basma are the only plants planted in the ground and from maybe 50-60 plugs I'm down to 10 so the slugs better leave me alone.

 

[deluxestogie]

a badger

I think that's a first for the FTT forum.

Bob

 

[cigarillofingers]

Time has marched on and the plants have filled out nicely. I lost a few more to slug attacks but you have to move on otherwise the slugs will get you too! Considering I smoke about 1-2 bowls of pipe tobacco a week (and only when it's fine weather) I think I'll manage!

Burley with the obligatory lighter on the leaf.


Tobacco Allee - 2 Burley's in the foreground and 3 Virgina's in the back.


Virginia's are now topped, getting yellowing on the one that was topped first, thinking it's maybe getting ready. The Burley's are just about ready to bust out some buds.


Pottering around the garden with this today, a new one on me. Pretty sweet! Now to get my drying space set up in the attic.... Which is also my work from home space so can't have my drying tobacco leaves getting on my teams calls!

 

[cigarillofingers]

Basic question no.403 - do you top Orientals? I've got Basma just starting to bud up and am I right in wanting to chop the lovely flowers away?

 

[The Haroo ln]

From what I understand, orientals aren't really topped. Apparently it helps them with their specific aroma and flavour profile. But then again I've never grown oriental before so not sure. Just going off what I've read

 

[deluxestogie]

Traditionally, Orientals are not topped, but allowed to fully bloom. This allows them to develop their unique floral qualities, and keeps the nicotine in the range typical for Orientals. ["Traditionally" means that they were not topped for hundreds of years, under the Ottoman Empire. And they were typically planted in fields that had been grazed during the springtime by goats, which also provided urine and feces fertilizers. This led to Western expectations of the taste and strength of "Oriental" tobacco.]

If you have more than a few Oriental plants, you could always compare topped to untopped, and see which you prefer.

Bob

 

[cigarillofingers]

Cheers Fellas,
I have a small crop of 10 plants so I might top one as a comparison. Would the leaf show the normal visual clues to being ripe when not topped or do you just wait x amount of time? Do other varieties develop different flavour/smell profiles if left topped/untopped?
Questions questions!

 

[Knucklehead]

Cheers Fellas,
I have a small crop of 10 plants so I might top one as a comparison. Would the leaf show the normal visual clues to being ripe when not topped or do you just wait x amount of time? Do other varieties develop different flavour/smell profiles if left topped/untopped?
Questions questions!

FAQ about Turkish tobaccos

istanbulin, I understand that you are providing the dimensions for traditional, row-planted tobacco. In intensive/biodynamic gardening, the assumption is that the soil between the rows is only minimally available to roots, due to soil compaction. I grow nothing in traditional row planting, but...

fairtradetobacco.com

FAQ about Turkish tobaccos

I think we can gather together the FAQ about Turkish tobaccos. I'd like to start with the most but the most FAQ question (to me); which strain to grow ? (1) There certainly are a lot of different types of Turkish tobaccos. If you could only grow one variety, what would it be and why? Ray...

fairtradetobacco.com

 

[cigarillofingers]

Three of the Virgina's are chopped and hanging. I noticed something which to me looked a lot like butterflies had started to eat the lower leaves in patches. They'd been topped for two weeks so decided to get them in. Cut them down yesterday and left them hanging in the little greenhouse overnight with the door open and now they're strung up in the attic. I've also chopped one of my Basma down.
Heavy rain forecast over the weekend so I'm planning on priming the Burley early next week but we'll see what the weather is doing.

 

[cigarillofingers]

I've been away and returned, upon checking in with my drying plants I need to have advice on some leaves. Mainly I kinda think they've dried green. They're much darker and thicker than the other leaves and seem crinkly