Hello From Central Kentucky

[bbfarmky]

Evening y'all,

Married, retired USAF Veteran, father of three, and grandfather of three. Run a small market farm with mixed vegetables, small fruits, and honeybees.

Smoked cigarettes for 32 years and am now trying to transition to a pipe without cigarettes. The past few months of pipe tobacco education has sparked an interest in growing my own. I am told this is the place to be for good intel on that subject.

Look forward to learning and sharing if I learn enough.

 

[Alpine]

Welcome to FTT

pier

 

[jclif43]

Welcome!

 

[Wombat_smokes]

Welcome to the Forum. Best wishes as you choose your varieties. Remember, Whole Leaf Tobacco is a great resource to sample different categories of plants while practicing what to do with your finished crop.

 

[WillQuantrill]

Welcome to FTT! Lots of reference material here to help accelerate your hobby and bypass commonly made mistakes from growing to finishing. While I only dabble with pipe blending Im sure you will find that it is much more enjoyable to make blends tailored to your pallet without all of the BS found in those sold commercially.

 

[deluxestogie]

Welcome to the forum. You may wish to scan through the topics in our Index of Key Forum Threads, linked in the menu bar. Now is a good time of year to select what tobacco varieties you will grow in 2027, and to purchase the seed, since germination will start for you in late march (~8 weeks prior to last frost date).

Northwest Seed is a reliable source of specific varieties of tobacco.

Bob

 

[GreenDragon]

Welcome! We have a lot of fun here. Tons of resources and friends to get you started and be successful.

 

[vktr]

Yeah come fly with us

 

[deluxestogie]

How many plants were you thinking of growing for 2027?

Bob

 

[bbfarmky]

How many plants were you thinking of growing for 2027?

Bob

Have a popcorn patch I grow that is 100' x 32'. Planning on dedicating the two outside rows to tobacco (I don't really need 300-500 lbs+- of popcorn anyway) so there is roughly 64 spots available assuming 36" plant spacing.

Now, what to put in those spots is an entirely different question. Definitely want a good VA and Burley and they are going to have to be air or sun cured. No infrastructure for anything else at the moment. I am also interested in trying a few N. Rustica plants just to play around with. I have plenty of row cover around to make seed head bags.

I'm all ears...(while I guess eyes in this format) if anyone has specific recommendations as a starting point. I perused around a lot here yesterday reading some of that discussion specifically.

 

[deluxestogie]

• Virginia Bright Leaf (assumed sun-cured) spaced at 24 to 36"
• TN 86 or TN 90 burley (shade-cured) spaced at 24 to 36" [I have become fond of the lovely Canadian burley variety, Harrow Velvet.]
• Basma [Oriental] (sun-cured) spaced at 9"

This will give you a nice start for pipe blending.

From any or all of these, you can also cook them into Cavendish, or ferment into Perique.

Bob

 

[johnny108]

I would add a few Little Dutch plants to any grow designed for pipe smoking tobacco.