My tobacco seeds have arrived and I wasted no time in planting them.
I took Leg Iron's advice and put the first batch in a huge pot inside the house. The seeds are so tiny it is impossible to handle them individually but I reckon about four or five got scattered.
Checking them each day for any growth is a bit like watching paint dry but they've only been in for three days and so I should be more patient. I don't expect to see any sign of life for at least 10 days after planting. However, I put another few in pellets in a germinating tray today to see if I can make them grow any quicker.
I am a bit behind most people who are already thinking about harvesting and curing what they have grown. the Bolton Smoker's Club has more on that including a link to the video below.
I noted a comment over on the BSC about paying tax on home grown tobacco and so I thought I'd better check out the law. In the 1600s the King hated tobacco so much he put tax up by 4000 percent which resulted in the peasants growing their own. So much was lost to the Treasury that the King had to have a rethink. He lowered the tax and the cash poured in once more.
I thought he might have wanted to close the loophole and left us with an olde law that might be the basis of making home grown tobacco illegal today but it seems not.
Neither our Monarch nor our Govt make our laws today but rather the EU which decided in 1992 that all EU citizens should pay duty on what they produce because of the unelected B'stards from smokerphobic lobby groups.
Of course we only have to start coughing up and paying the smokerphobics indirectly through our tax if we produce a successful crop that can actually be processed and smoked. As I'm still waiting for my first growth, I'll reserve judgement on that for now.