Pat, Frank and Junican have posted the current growth of their baccy plants, so here’s a couple of mine. Ignore the weeds, it’s been so wet that weeding has become futile.
This is probably the best one. Those lower leaves were minced by slugs and had become diseased, so I took them off. It’s only half the height of last year’s plants but considering what a dreadful growing year it’s been, I’m happy to get anything at all.
Second best. Behind it is a tiny one that’s been struggling. This has one of my ex-fermentor glass tubes over it with a ring of copper tape around the top, because some slugs were munching at it and they are in danger of becoming obese. Seems to be pretty good at keeping the slugs out. Unfortunately I only have two of those.
I don’t know how much I’ll get this year but every puff of smoke from these is one more puff that isn’t paying for the Dreadful Arnott or Lansley the Thug to dream up new ways to make life miserable.
I haven’t seen much in the way of wild plants yet. Well, I haven’t been back to all the places I dropped seeds but I suspect that this year, the rampaging slugs and the cold snap in spring will have done a lot of damage. Next year I hope to see some wild ones growing in Wales, the land of the feeble and home of the slave.
Can’t be helped. These are just starting to flower now so there’ll be another batch of seed ready to get thrown around. Apart from the flowers I dry for smoking, of course.
Notice the packaging, the pretty colours that draw us smokers in like moths to a flame? Of course not. There’s no packaging at all. When it’s cured and ready there’ll still be no packaging at all. No additives, either. Just plain, straight tobacco and it won’t have the damn twigs in it that have become common in commercial packs of baccy now. It’s as if those companies just don’t care.
Australia’s Court of Cobberland has decided that it’s perfectly okay for the government to take possession of the intellectual property of a private company, even if the company isn’t Australian. Are you paying attention, Mr. MacDonald? Do you see where this is going, Mr. Castlemaine and Mr. Fosters? If they can do it to one company they can do it to anyone. And they don’t like you any more than they like the tobacco companies. You must have realised that by now?
No, of course they haven’t realised. They will continue to try appeasement as they are knocked back, step by step. Just as the tobacco companies do.
I still say the tobacco companies should make an example of Australia. Pull out. Close every factory and every warehouse. Source no packaging within Australia. Nothing. Pull out altogether.
I don’t mean ‘threaten to do it’. I don’t mean ‘warn the government you plan to do it’. Just do it. Start shutting down operations in Australia. Start with those who make the packaging now. You don’t need them any more anyway. Close factories and warehouses. Refuse to import any products to Australia. Let the black market have Australia and let the tax revenue die. See if they can recoup their losses from the anti-tobacco Nazis who have never, and will never, contribute a single penny to any country’s economy.
It’s not just the tax on cigarettes. It’s the taxes paid by the business, the rates paid by the factories, all the income tax paid by all the workers, the fuel duty paid by the transport firms who move the products around, and much more. The effect on the economy would be devastating.
So come on, Big Tobacco. Show us you have some guts. Stop cowering and cringing and trying to appease these filthy, self-righteous scum who have never put in an honest days’ work in their lives. Appeasement has never worked and never will. You have to show them what it really means when you’re gone.
Pull out of Australia. Entirely. Do it once, and just watch your enemy crumble.
Oh, and don’t go back unless there are certain concessions regarding business premises and employment conditions.
Come on, tobacco companies. Take the whip out of the bansturbator’s hands and beat the buggers to death with it.
Absolutely. Just as I have said myself on a couple of other blogs.
The tobacco companies just need to grow a pair, and they could put a stop to all this nonsense in a week.
They could but I’m not holding my breath.
I don’t really understand why they won’t do it either. If it was in my power I would have done it long ago and loved it
these look amazing!
I live in the borders, never thought of being able to grow my own
but this has definitely inspired me to look into it
is it easy to get seeds? for next year?
[er.. it isn't illegal? surely not? well not yet anyways]
It’s not illegal, it’s not even of any interest to the Revenue Men until it’s smokeable and even then, it’s not cost effective to chase us for duty on a few ounces. It only falls foul of the law if you try to sell the finished product – so don’t!
It had never occurred to most of us smokers that tobacco could grow in the UK until the smoking bans and all the rest of the attacks were under way. Now we know it grows perfectly well here and isn’t at all difficult, the genie is out of the bottle for good. Every plant produces hundreds of seeds, the seeds are tiny and the wind takes most of them where it will. Those I collect end up on waste ground and untrimmed verges all over the place. I don’t need to keep very many.
I have enough seed here to plant half of Scotland. Send me an address (via the contact page) and I’ll put some in the post.
Junican (Bolton Smoker’s Club) has details on growing and curing, and both Frank Davis and Pat Nurse have been growing indoors so it doesn’t have to be seasonal. No fancy lighting or special growing rooms. All you need is a decent sized pot of dirt.
thanks LegIron & Junican
I’ll start my reading straight away
only have a shared yard which only gets half a days sunshine so I think the indoor grow may well be the better way to go
will get back to you on the generous offer when I’m well read up, than you
This is Junican.
Seeds are easy to come by. LI has loads, and so will I after this season. Google the Bolton Smokers Club and read my article on ‘Growing, Curing, Flavouring and Finishing Tobacco for Cigarettes’.
http://boltonsmokersclub.wordpress.com/growing-curing-flavouring-and-finishing-tobacco-for-cigarettes/
Seeds can easily be obtained from a number of sellers on the internet. Google ‘tobacco seeds’.
There is absolutely no law against growing tobacco at all. There is no law against making cigarettes. The only ‘iffy’ thing is DUTY. Theoretically, homegrown tobacco is liable for duty, but then, so is homegrown wine or beer. The practical difficulties of trying to impose duty on homegrowers are enormous. What is the ‘taxpoint’? How do you impose duty upon tobacco which may be just dried tobacco plant leaves which have not been properly fermented? What is the nicotine content of home grown tobacco? What is the weight of one cigarette or the contents of a little box of dry tobacco (very light indeed, believe me)?
Go for it!
Hey up! We overlapped, LI!
Damn it! You’ve been moaning for weeks about being behind and yet your plants are well advanced.
Typical Welshman……………
They are dreadful compared to last year. I feed them with tomato-growing stuff (Tomorite) which they seem to like.
went to school in bolton
used to live in little lever back in the 70′s early 80′s
so hope you don’t mind me joining?
Couldn’t agree more LI. The Australians want a tobacco free land, the tobacco companies should coordinate all the help the Ozzies could wish for. This is their last chance to fight back.
Yes indeed. Give them what they wish for and see how they like it.
They should also be starting a shut-down of UK operations at the same time. Lansley the Thug has already said he wants them to have no business here. Show him what that means.
Excellent idea Leg-iron, starve the beast as they say. The ruling didn’t say anything about cigarette cases either. The companies should begin producing them and selling them almost free as loss leaders with smiling likenesses of that Roxon woman and that Chapman fellow I saw on the yankee BBC broadscast tonight, prominently displayed on them.
We’re talking really flattering, smiling, ‘I heartily endorse this brand!’ images. And take out trademarks for Roxon Filters and Chapman 100′s and the like. All perfectly legal. What are they gonna’ do, outlaw cigarette cases?
Don’t answer that.
English Tobacco
Tobacco Leaf Growing
It was during the 16th and early 17th centuries that the area around Winchcombe was extremely poor , it was during this period that a family named Tracy established themselves at Toddington, the eldest son Sir John Tracy became involved with a John Stratford who was related to him by marriage, they set up a business together to grow tobacco in the area, with plantations at Toddington and Bishops Cleeve.
Tobacco was widely grown on the Cotswolds, the Vale of Tewkesbury and in an area which extended as far south as Wiltshire.
Winchcombe was crossed and re-crossed by Salters routes, John Stratford was a member of the Salter’s Company, he was a dealer in woollen stockings and a member of the Eastland Company who dealt in broadcloth, his vas business interests also included the manufacture of tallow, oil, potash and soap.
At the very time of the first crop in the area coming to maturity in 1619 tobacco growing in the British Isles was banned, this was done in order that it could be grown on a commercial scale in the Colonies where it was considered that the need for employment was greater.”
http://www.cotswolds.info/cotswolds-heritage.shtml#tabacco_leaf_growing
Hampshire Tobacco Farming
“Phyl Ralton a member of the Fleet and Crookham Local History Group, contacted the programme with information about research they have been involved in about a surprising crop that was grown in Hampshire between the two world wars – tobacco.
Phyl told Making History that tobacco growing was illegal until 1910 and soon after that, several people started experiments. The leader in this field was Arthur J Brandon who grew up to 35 acres of tobacco plants in Church Crookham, near Fleet in Hampshire from 1911 until his death in 1937. He harvested up to 800 lbs per acre and demonstrated that it was possible to grow, cure and sell good tobacco products but he could not make a commercial success of the business against cheaper foreign competition and the amount of duty levied on his crop.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/making_history/making_history_20080603.shtml
Though they did try to amend that in 1922 as the excise duty was crippling the industry.
“Tobacco was once grown on a very large scale in this country. It was once grown in no fewer than 31 different counties. In the year 1660 it was prohibited by Act of Parliament.
In 1910 a Liberal Government made the growing again permissible, but the Government not only did that, but on 1st January, 1911, they granted a protective rebate of 30 per cent. to English-grown tobacco in order to establish the tobacco-growing industry, thereby following out the well-known maxims of 2271 Adam Smith and Cobden that an infant industry can be protected consistently with Free Trade principles.
In 1913 the contribution was altered by a grant of 820,000 from the Development Commission for English-grown tobacco. That was not nearly so successful. The acreage under tobacco, which had reached 140 acres, declined in two years to about 40 acres, and the great bulk of the money of the Development Commission was spent on administrative expenses and unprofitable expenditure.
But what has really put the English tobacco industry in such a ruinous condition—and this is the point I wish to bring before the Chancellor of the Exchequer—was not only the events of the War when all acreage was devoted to growing food that could possibly be devoted to it, but the policy of the Government themselves in regard to Imperial Preference.”
“It is a complete fallacy to think that tobacco-cannot be successfully grown in this country. At the present moment it is grown in my constituency. I have cigarettes here which were grown in my constituency, which I shall be delighted to offer to any hon. Member. The tobacco is very much like Rhodesian tobacco of a light sort.
Mr. FRANCE – What do you call the cigarettes?
Viscount WOLMER – Hampshire cigarettes.
Mr. FRANCE – Do you smoke them?
Viscount WOLMER
Yes, though personally I am a pipe smoker. There are other reasons why the tobacco-growing industry should he encouraged. Tobacco is grown on the very lightest soils. It is grown on the sands round Aldershot, which will not bear an ordinary crop. For that reason it is grown in parts of Berkshire and Norfolk. Therefore, if you encourage tobacco growing, you can bring a great acreage of soil under cultivation which you cannot do with any other crop, and that soil, subjected to high manurial treatment, becomes capable of growing oats, barley, and potatoes, and can, therefore, be made a potential food reserve in time of war. It is worth while establishing this industry, which was once flourishing and was destroyed by the action of the State.”
Continues at length and very informatively -
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1922/jun/28/new-clause-excise-duties-on-homegrown
LI
Considering the weather you’ve had it’s a miracle that you’ve got anything at all.
Apart from the big one, the rest are slowly making their way up to 4ft including the flowers.
One of the Havanas I’m growing as an ornamental has just got to 5ft , I wasn’t sure what to do with them but you have given me a brilliant idea.
Remember you were telling people that salmon was smoked over tobacco leaves?
Well , I very much miss the scent of cigars and it had occurred to me to burn the Havana like incense, but now I have a better idea.
It has been determined that woodsmoke is 12 times more harmful than tobacco smoke.
(Don’t argue, they are trying to ban woodstoves in America, so naturally it’s decidedly questionable)
At the moment I am using hickory chips to hot-smoke bacon with my newly acquired knowledge from the internet.
So I thought next year I might use the Havana stems to smoke the bacon, while I enjoy the scent.
If it works of course, they will take hours of drying in the oven, I thought just below the temperature it takes to dry out a meringue.
Well, eggs are as dangerous as smoking now, so I think we’ve reached the point of ‘anything goes’.
I think Leggy’s biggest one puts him streets ahead of everyone, and Leader of the Pack. It must be 4 feet high.
But he’s using performance-enhancing drugs (i.e. Tomorite), so maybe it doesn’t count. I’ve got some HomeBase Grow Your Own liquid plant food, but I haven’t used any yet.
Growing indoors, I don’t have any slug problems, of course
Growing indoors also keeps them away from high winds, which can be strong enough to knock the whole lot over – including the bucket!
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”No, of course they haven’t realised. They will continue to try appeasement as they are knocked back, step by step.”
Sometimes the wilful blindness of non-smoking drinkers and their suppliers, the drinks manufacturers, is simply astonishing. Try suggesting – even hinting – over at the Pub Curmudgeon’s site that now is the time to begin organising themselves for the onslaught – not 10 years’ time when the new breed of prohibitionists have got the bit between their teeth (and the ear of the Government) – and you’ll get all the same replies:
“They couldn’t ban it – too many people enjoy drinking. There’d be a public riot.”
“It’s my business if I want to damage my health, not the Government’s.”
“Moderate drinking has been shown to be good for you.”
“It’s different from smoking. I’m not hurting anyone else.”
“There’s no such thing as Passive Drinking.”
“Doctors and nurses and MP’s are the biggest drinkers around. They wouldn’t want to ban it because they enjoy it.”
“All the pubs would close if they restricted drinking to silly limits, and the Government need the tax from pubs and alcohol, so they won’t do it.”
“It’s only those irresponsible Binge Drinkers who are the problem. Not sensible drinkers like me.”
In other words, pretty much everything that smokers said in the early days of their own demonisation, when we couldn’t see what was inching steadily and stealthily towards us. Drinkers just don’t realise that pretty much all of the above “reasons” why alcohol couldn’t possibly go the way of smoking are quite easily overcome by a determined set of Healthists, using exactly the same measures as were used against smoking. Neither do they realise that much of the fun for these health zealots lies in the long, drawn-out torture which comes before the final thrust of restrictive legislation, and which can, with a bit of effort, even be extended beyond it.
At least smokers have the excuse of having been the first – of not having seen anyone else experience this kind of lifestyle demonisation before. These were tactics not used since 1930’s Germany, and most of those affected only knew about the end-product of that and very little of the insidious process which preceded it. Drinkers and alcohol manufacturers don’t have that excuse, because for most of them the whole anti-smoking process is well within living memory. If they don’t organise themselves – and quickly – and end up going the same way as smokers (as it seems certain that they will, in a much quicker time than they might imagine), then they’ll only have themselves to blame.
Sorry, bad wording, what I meant was ” … most of those affected by the anti-smoking movement …”
Jax, their heads are in the sand – from top to bottom! Even now, Alcohol companies are almost certainly trying to appease the Zealots. And, very likely, so are fast food joints. They will not learn. APPEASEMENT is all these companies understand. The whole situation is reminiscent of ‘troubles in far away countries’ prior to WW2.
I wonder how long it will be before the penny drops? Remember the poll tax revolt? The revolt was nothing! But the Tory Brutuses and Cassiuses used it as an excuse to assassinate Caeser (Thatcher).
The nearest thing to courage that has emerged recently is the ‘revolt’ by the small shopkeepers assn. over tobacco packaging. That is very unusual. We must hope that bigger organisations follow suit.
interesting piece from cnn from an anti-smoker who thinks the aussie are making a big mistake:
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/15/opinion/opinion-smoking-packaging/index.html
When even the antis are questioning the process, you know they’ve gone too far. Fortunately, the zealots never realise this.