My Hobby

My other hobby is growing tobacco from seeds, these pictures show each stage of growing starting in the late February / early March for the UK / Canada / North America. This hobby has been passed on to others and today around fifty countries are growing tobacco from my seeds. See www.coffinails.com

Sow seeds early spring indoors in a heated propagator with a plastic or glass lid. Seed shown would be about 21 days from sowing.	Here they are again after 42 days, on a cold night the lid is put back on. Note the moisture clinging to the plastic covers.
As in the picture above you will see the left hand tray has been thinned down by pricking out the seedlings. The picture to your direct right shows these very plants potted on.
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This next stage shows the plants at the hardening off stage, 10 to 12 weeks from sowing and around the mid to late May, or early June in the UK. You do this hardening off process two weeks from planting outdoors, to get the plant accustomed to the colder air.
I am planting outdoors as you see in the picture, note the plastic cover on the ground. This sheet is not essential, but if the soil has not been weeded well prior to planting out, the plastic will hold the weeds back. There is another bonus with this system, it retains ground heat and any moisture in the soil.

It takes two weeks for the new plants to settle in, and when they get going it’s reach for the sky time. This picture would be after four weeks in the ground.	Here is a close up of the plant after six weeks, just before the flowers start to show.
this is a close up of the flowers, by now they are five to six foot off the ground, which makes this an ideal plant for the back boarders of your garden.

normally a grower cuts off the flowers to put the growth into the leaf. For me it is the seed I am after, and every flower means 3,000 seeds.

Waste not want not! Here are the plants with the leaf stripped off. I get two things out of this, one is tobacco for 100 cigarettes per plant, and all the goodness is now aimed at the seed pods.

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drying the seed on a home made washing line.	Or under any outdoor lean to or canopy.
Here is the dried leaf, the picture quality does not do the tobacco justice, but you get the idea. It could be smoked at this stage, but improves with curing the tobacco (see curing tobacco button on my site at www.coffinails.com).

In this picture I am wrapping a binder leaf around loose tobacco. It’s called a former, and allows the cigar to dry in a uniform shape. (see cigar making button on the site)

I am rolling the outside leaf (wrapper) on the cigar.

If you have enjoyed seeing this hobby of mine covering cigarettes, pipe tobacco, cigars and snuff, then click the link for more information. www.coffinails.com

Here are two of my twelve grandchildren helping to sieve the seeds I supply to the home grower.

Lastly is the big question, what do you get! Well here it is folks, seeds instructions, a little history, all sent by airmail for overseas growers. There are no extras for postage, it’s all in the one package.