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I know it's not very healthy, but has anyone tried growing tobacco? My old man is never going to give it up, so we may as well try to save some money. Also I know it has to be declared to Customs if you cure it or roll it, does anyone know how much this costs?

Where are you? The rules are different everywhere.

Here in the US, the regulations only apply if you sell it. You can grow your own and its nobody's business. (Yet. The rules on gardening in general are changing.)

I'm planting some for the first time this year, but so far from all the stuff I've read, its grown just like any other big leafy thing.

Nobody in my family smokes, but 5 years ago I was given a tobacco seedpod by an old Hopi, whose tribe had been tending the same half-wild tobacco patch for 4000 years!!! I figure that's worth preserving, and since the seed is 5 years old now its due to be refreshed. I'll ask one of my smoker friends how it tastes :p

Hi Ellendra
Thanks for the reply, I'm in the UK and I'm pretty sure the law is a bit stricter here. I think customs expect you to "own up" to curing and rolling the tobacco, and I wouldn't want to take any chances doing it on the sly. I suppose the best thing to do would be to just contact them and ask. But I dont really want to go to all that trouble just to find it isn't worth growing in the first place.

Any older chaps remember growing it during the war. My Dad did - but sadly he's no longer around to ask.

Karen, when we were still in the UK, I looked into this, & we found out that we could grow it... cure it... shred it... but when you smoke it, that's when you have to declare it

Anyway, now we're in Ireland, I got some sent over from the US & now have around 2 dozen little plants sitting in the bathroom getting bigger... they're going out into the front garden, well away from the tomatoes (they give tomatoes mosaic disease) and as they will be quite pretty, no-one here's going to know what they are!

Andy's going to build me a curer & we shall see how it works out

Fingers crossed - at least we're giving it a go anyway.

Also, in the meantime - does your hubby buy loose baccy?
We can't get it here, so I had 500gms sent over from the UK before Xmas - still using it even now, so it was a good buy - and works out LOADS cheaper!

Don't hold me to it, but I read a post somewhere a few months ago that said in the UK you're allowed to grow, cure and smoke your own baccy without intervention from HMRC. If you proceed to selling it, you have to get all sorts of certificates and start paying.

You lucky lot. Here in Italy, we're not even allowed to grow it.

Thanks for all the info folks.
I think I might just go ahead and grow some then

Karen - the seeds are VERY tiny - almost like dust.... I put the compost in some seed trays, wet the soil & then sprinkled the seeds on top - until you actually see the seedlings, my book says to just 'mist' with a prayer to water.....

Out of 2 packets of seeds, I actually got 24 plants, although I did pass some *dust* onto Camile & another friend... I hope they had luck with theirs too!

Mine are now repotted into larger modules & are sitting in the polyhouse, waiting to grow large enough to plant in the front garden

Some of you might be interested in this website that sell whole leaf tobacco which you can then process yourself into cigarettes or whatever, with a machine they also sell. I believe this way attracts none or less tax.

http://www.pureleaf.co.uk/

I grow. Smoke very little.
Good info on growing and curing etc Here:
http://www.howtogrowtobacco.com
And here:
http://fairtradetobacco.com

there's a great long thread about us all growing Golden Virginia tobacco from seed here a couple of years ago. Do a search on tobacco seeds/growing on the forum.

Whatever the rules and regs are, I don't think anyone cared.

I smoked about 3 roll ups from home grown tobacco and that was all I could take as it was far too strong.