Customs rip off

[chainsnuser]

... or just grow your own tobacco. Australia is a country with so much sun, isn't it?. Just today my first seeds of Nicotiana Rustica began to sprout. I'm not sure, if I'll get usable tobacco from these or if they can only be used as ornamental plants. The climate in Germany and especially here in Dortmund, on the "rainside" of the Sauerland Mountains, is just terrible. I hope for the best but don't have too high expectations.

Cheers!

[Craig de Tering]

... or just grow your own tobacco. Australia is a country with so much sun, isn't it?. Just today my first seeds of Nicotiana Rustica began to sprout. I'm not sure, if I'll get usable tobacco from these or if they can only be used as ornamental plants. The climate in Germany and especially here in Dortmund, on the "rainside" of the Sauerland Mountains, is just terrible. I hope for the best but don't have too high expectations.

Cheers!

Chainsnuser, just today I lightly skimmed this website http://www.coffinails.com/ (maybe you bought your seeds from it?)....anyway, it says you have to *plant* your tobacco seeds around this time of year (March) because it seems European weather leaves a small window of opportunity (with the sun and temperature) to give the plant the best growth.

[chainsnuser]

No, I got my seeds from a hobby-tobacco-farmer.

The seedlings will be planted in the garden in about two weeks. I don't think that's too late. Rustica is a tobacco, that grows well in cold climates. It has been cultivated in Germany since the 17th century and originally stems from the north of North America AFAIK.

Anyhow, I don't have high hopes that I can produce a quality tobacco, but It'll be nice just to see the plants grow.

Cheers!

[STORM6490MT]

No, I got my seeds from a hobby-tobacco-farmer.

The seedlings will be planted in the garden in about two weeks. I don't think that's too late. Rustica is a tobacco, that grows well in cold climates. It has been cultivated in Germany since the 17th century and originally stems from the north of North America AFAIK.

Anyhow, I don't have high hopes that I can produce a quality tobacco, but It'll be nice just to see the plants grow.

Cheers!

I have pretty damn good directions on growing tobacco in a 5 gallon drum bucket if you are interested. They grow to about 6 feet tall and you can get thousands of seeds from one plant if you decide not to crop it and let it go to seed. Anybody with a south facing window or small space can grow tobacco.

my friend grows his own tobacco in alaska so it can grow anywhere. if you are in a cold area, make sure it is frost free for 60-70 days. If you do get frost it will wipe them out.

good luck. I will post some photos of my personal stash when i germinate the seeds.

[chainsnuser]

Many thanks, STORM6490MT, the same to you!

I already thought about planting 4 tobacco-plants directly in the garden, 4 in big flower pots or buckets and 4 in small flower pots on a window sill. Regarding the window-sill, I hope that tobacco is a plant that adjusts it's size to the size the flower-pot, like most plants do. I will probably let 8 plants bloom and try to get usable tobacco from 4 plants. It will mostly be eperimentation this year.

It's extremely likely that I will have some questions to you in the next weeks, so thanks again!

Just to show some photos:

The Garden - direction west:

Most of the photo (left, right and at the top) are neighbours' gardens and houses.

Same direction, camera moved up to the heaven. Typical spring- weather in Dortmund (no rain = good weather):

Actually, here in Dortmund, the whole year consists of about 4 weeks of real good, sunny and dry weather and 48 weeks of the weather on the photo. If I had taken the photo a week earlier, even some snow would be seen. We have about 6 absolutely frost-free months, so it's not really cold here, just not very sunny.

Both photos may serve to show, why I don't have high hopes. It's just a small and shady garden. I haven't grown any vegatables for years now, because it's not worth the hassle. The only plants, that grew well, were peas, beans and radish. Chive still grows very well in a small edge of the garden.

The seedlings (seeded last saturday(!). After all I know, Rustica is quite an unusual kind of tobacco - it is extremely robust and it contains about 10 times more nicotine than Virginia tobacco, used for cigarettes or snus). According to the very short germination-time, I begin to believe the informations.

The Rustica seedlings are in the three small peat-pots top-left, below are some fast-grown sunflower-seedlings. Actually sunflowers grow very well here and easily grow up to 7 feet or even more. Despite of the name, sunflowers need more water than sun and they really get enough water here. They can also be seeded directly in the garden without any problems but due to an unusual cold spring this year I wanted to pre-grow at least one plant.
All plants will get piqued, of course, one plant per pot will be left. The Rustica-tobacco-seeds were more much more fertile than I expected! The tobacco-seeds themselves are very small BTW, they are barely visible, so it's absolutely impossible to just seed just 3 or 4 of them per pot. The other pots contain dill and also some other sorts of tobacco (Virginia, Korso, Adonis), that hopefully will sprout in the next weeks.

I already love the little tobacco-plants. At this point, it's not impossible, that they all die within the next week, but at the moment they look very good.

I'll keep you all updated.

Cheers!

[STORM6490MT]

Awesome garden! There is a lot of potential there! Be careful when you transplant the seedlings to their new home. They are super sensitive and need to be protected. I use an old 1 gallon milk jug with the bottom cut out to protect the new plant from damage and to cut some of the sun. You can also use white sheets to defuse the sun a little. Direct sun will dry it out easily.

Good luck to you in your beautiful garden. I plant ninja style on the rocks in montana. Quite difficult!


nick
whitefish montana america

[chainsnuser]

Thanks Storm! Best of luck also with your ninja-approach!

Three of the four tobacco-sorts have now germed. The Rustica and the Virginia are already doing very well, but are still very tiny.

The plants are among the slowest growing that I've ever seen, especially when I consider how big they should be by the end of summer. I'm still not overly optimistic, but will try my best to get a little tobacco-harvest.

Thanks for your tips! How long does it normally take till the plants are strong enough to survive outdoors?

Cheers!

[STORM6490MT]

Thanks Storm! Best of luck also with your ninja-approach!

Three of the four tobacco-sorts have now germed. The Rustica and the Virginia are already doing very well, but are still very tiny.

The plants are among the slowest growing that I've ever seen, especially when I consider how big they should be by the end of summer. I'm still not overly optimistic, but will try my best to get a little tobacco-harvest.

Thanks for your tips! How long does it normally take till the plants are strong enough to survive outdoors?

Cheers!

You should transplant your plants in May or June. Make sure they are in a south facing window before then. In late April early May, start putting the plant outside during the days to get used to the full shot of wind and sun. Don't leave them out at night that early. If you are on a mountain, you may even need to transplant later. Another thing that really helps is to play heavy metal to them and mist the plant with spring water every day.
When you transplant them they should be 60cm apart. Set them one thumb width deep into the soil above the crown. Cover them with something like our milk jugs or translucent cone. Horse shit and pet shit works great to keep the pH of 7. Make sure to put your old snus around the base of your plant. If you have a charcoal grill, you can use the waste for around the plant when it is about as high as your knee. Keep tomatoes and cucumbers away from your tobacco, they will kill it. I don't know why. If you can figure out a way to keep the soil at pH7, you are golden.
After transplanting, they will take hold of the soil and grow quickly. When they hit 35cm or more, you can stop watering them and let mother nature nourish them. Rain will do your job. Keep an eye out for sucker plants or weeds that may get near the tobacco plant. I put a sheet of newspaper on the ground around the plant and put an inch of soil over that. Much less weeding and no chemicals.
When they start to get big, watch out for little bugs that like to get buzzed off of eating your stash all day. Inspect them often and kill any bugs on the plant with a lighter.
When the plants get chest high, they will start to form flower heads, let one go and the other you need to chop off with a ninja sword. This crops the head and the plant puts all the effort into the leaves. The one you didn't chop will produce thousands of seeds for your future don't use it for snus or smoke.
Around August or September, you will notice that the lower leaves will start to yellow, harvest the bottom ones first that yellow and work your way up. At one point the majority of the plant will all become ripe and turn yellow. Chop that off with the katana and hang them in a well ventilated dry dark place. Hammer nails into a long piece of wood and use the nail tip to hang the tobacco from the stalk. At this point, you have to figure out how to season and cure your tobacco. I wish I could tell you how but I swore an oath to protect the secret.
Cure to taste!

[chainsnuser]

Many thanks, Storm!

After reading your tips, I feel that it's a shame, that most of our money, spent for tobacco, feeds the governments. The farmers should get it!

I've already read many tips for the curing and seasoning of the tobacco, which maybe will be the hardest part of it all. It will all be trial and error, no doubt. I'd try to use the air-dried tobacco as chew first.

I don't live on a mountain, but the local farmers believe, that the 16th of May is the first day of the year, that is guaranteed frost-free. We normally get a few really hot days in April and then a cold spell at the beginning of May.

At the moment, I only hope that the seedlings keep doing well. The Rustica seedlings now begin to show some real growth, but still look very fragile.

Cheers!

[screamcat]

Another Aussie (Brisbane) chiming in here...

I got an order of 5 cans from buysnus.com today. From the postmarks it looks like it reached Australia in under a week, then was held by customs for three weeks (!!) before they sent me a bill for the tax.

They billed me $13.11 for five cans of white portions, does that sound right? Looking at other posts around the net with Aussies getting charge 80 or 100AUD for a roll, i'm thinking maybe I got lucky.

It worked out to about 8-9 bucks a can in the end all costs considered, which isn't great (but still cheaper than cigs over here).

Is this usual or did I get off lightly?

[STORM6490MT]

Another Aussie (Brisbane) chiming in here...

I got an order of 5 cans from buysnus.com today. From the postmarks it looks like it reached Australia in under a week, then was held by customs for three weeks (!!) before they sent me a bill for the tax.

They billed me $13.11 for five cans of white portions, does that sound right? Looking at other posts around the net with Aussies getting charge 80 or 100AUD for a roll, i'm thinking maybe I got lucky.

It worked out to about 8-9 bucks a can in the end all costs considered, which isn't great (but still cheaper than cigs over here).

Is this usual or did I get off lightly?

Man, that's terrible. With your climate, I would just grow my own. That's just too much for a pack of smokes or chew. A bunch of liberal safety nazi's probably made bunch of rules to tax your fun. Food is getting expensive as are other staples. Maybe it will get so expensive that people go back to growing their own food. A tobacco co-op or club would be a good start to get pure tax free tobacco.

9 a pack is just ****ing nuts.

You have my sympathy.

nick

[surfing_64]

You got off real easy, i got a bill here from yesterday from customs, for 4 cans of general white... $34.58!!!
Thats over $8 a can!!!
Lucky you. I've found that 2 and 1 can orders get through most of the time here in sydney, but had a couple pulled up. It sucks here down under

[chainsnuser]

So here is a new picture of my answer to all the anti-tobacco-nazis and tax-robber-knights: Nicotiana Rustica, seeded on March 22, standing on a west-facing window-sill, about 35cm high:



About 10 other plants, also including some Virginia will be planted in the garden in the next days as soon as the storm-warnings and the rain stop. I still have not too high hopes about the outcome and this year will be much experimenting, but as long as my home-grown tobacco has enough nicotine and doesn't taste too bad, I'm really planning to grow a year's supply from next year on, not to quit snus but just in case it gets worse with the taxes or the EU-ban.

Cheers!

[Premium Parrots]

Great job!!!... That plant looks healthy as hell.

[Craig de Tering]

She looks sehr hübsch! :lol: Mouth-wateringly so...hahaha