HOW TO ORDER
Information for all customers: Use our Tobacco order blank. Otherwise you can write your order on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper, clearly printing your name and address in the upper left-hand corner.

USA CUSTOMERS--
Send payment with all orders. Payment can be made in the form of a check, money order, or cash. U.S. postage stamps may be sent in the place of coins. We can accept credit card or phone orders, for orders over $25, with Discover, Mastercard or Visa. We cannot ship tobacco seeds outside of the USA.

CALIFORNIA CUSTOMERS---
Please add 8-1/4% sales tax if you live outside San Mateo County, or 9-1/4% if you live within San Mateo County.

POSTAGE & PACKING CHARGES:
U.S.A., MEXICO, AND CANADA CUSTOMERS,
please include the following amounts to cover postage and packing:

Packets: Add $4 for the first packet, and 10¢ for each additional packet, except for the special seed offer, below. Bulk seeds prices include postage costs.

Books or Pamphlets: Prices include postage.

TOBACCO growing and curing information.

Annual plants from the Americas, but will grow as a perennial where there is no hard frost. Originally used for thousands of years in Native American shamanistic ceremonies. Now, by lowering the nicotine content through curing, it has become the most powerfully addictive substance in the world.

Easily grown, start seeds like tomatoes in pots indoors, and transplant seedlings out into the garden, spacing 2-3 feet apart.

Plants need rich, well fertilized soil in full sun. Start seeds as you would tomatoes, planting 10-15 seeds in a 3-4" plastic pot in potting soil, sprinkling on soil surface, and do not cover, and keep young seedlings in the shade. NEVER USE POTTING SOIL FROM THE GARDEN!

Put your pot in a place that gets good air circulation and keep the pots moist but not soaking wet all the time. Seeds will germinate in 2-3 weeks and let the plants grow until they are large enough to transplant into their own individual pots.


1.) Fill a 3-4 inch plastic pot with potting soil. NEVER USE SOIL FROM THE GADREN. Buy a potting soil, like one of the Miracle Grow® brands.

2.) Put some seed in one hand, and take a pinch and sprinkle on soil surface.

3.) About two weeks later, the seedlings start to germinate:

Tobacco seedling life-sized, big enough to transplant into its own individual pot.

Carefully separate seedlings and repot each individual plant into their own 3"-4" pots and let grow until they are 3-4" tall. Plant out when night-time temperatures are above 50°F, and feed with liquid fertilizer every 2-3 weeks during the growing season.

Plants will grow to about 4-5 feet tall, with leaves up to two feet long, so space plants in rows, psacing the rows 5 feet apart, and at least four feet between plants in the row. Commercial growers plant closer, but by giving each plant more room, more space can help avoid the fungus and insect problems that cause commercial growers to use a lot of sprays on their plants.

The following information, shared by a tobacco farmer from Kentucky.

The soil is usually fertilized before the plant are planted, and then a second time when plants are knee-high.

When flowerhead start developing, they are cut, called "topping." Wear gloves and use a knife or garden nippers, and topping causes the plant to divert the energy that would be devoted to the flower stalk, to help the leaves develop more fully.

Harvesting usually starts eight weeks after the flower stalks are cut, when the leaves start to turn yellowish at the leaf tips.

Stalks are cut with their leaves attached, and hung indoors for two to three months to cure, in a garage or barn, a building with good air circulation. Do not dry this indoors in a closed room, or in the oven.

At the end of the curing period, the leaves are stripped from the stems on a dry day, the leaves will crumble, so wait until a moist or rainy day, to make the leaves pliable.

Tobacco yields on unirrigated land is usually 2,600-3,000 pound per acre, and irrigated lands can produce up to 4,000 pounds per acre, when using the closer commercial spacing of 25-32 inches between plants, with rows 40 inches apart. That translates to 1/2 pound to one pound of dried tobacco per plant.

USDA quotas have been converted to direct contracts. Until about five years ago, there was a USDA tobacco allotment and quota system, where the US Department of Agriculture formerly gave each commercial tobacco farmer an allotment and production quota, but that system has been abandonded. Now, all the commercial tobacco in the USA is grown under farmer contracts directly with the tobacco manufacturers, and the prices paid in 2008 for good quality whole leaf Burley was $1.80-2.25 per pound.

WARNING: Home grown tobacco can be very strong and even dangerous, so smoke with caution until you become familiar with the nicotine level of your product. As you probably know, tobacco is known to cause cancer, birth defects and other health problems.

Tobacco Alata flowers

----Alata. Night-scented tobacco. Plants 3-4 ft. tall and 18 inches across, blooming continuously with star-shaped white or rose colored flowers 2" across with 3" long tubes, with a sweet scent. Ornamental flower, not used for smoking. PKT. $1

----Common (Tabacum) "Burley 21" an old-timey cigarette strain, grown in the South since before the Civil War. Annual herb 3-6 ft., with leaves to one to two feet long and rose-colored flowers. Leaves and flowering tops contain nicotine. Before 1492, tobacco was known only in the Americas. Since that time, its has spread to all peoples of the world and is now the most widely-grown non-food plant. Our seedstock is Tobacco-virus-free. PACKET (100 seeds), $1 with postage extra, after the first special tobacco seed offer, see below. One ounce (about 100,000 seeds) $100.

Postage and packing to USA, $4 for the first packet, 10 cents for each additional extra. Prices for ounces or pounds include postage.

SPECIAL $1 TOBACCO SEED PACKET OFFER: (starting April 20, 2009)
One packet of 100 seeds of Burley 21 tobacco seeds and a catalog, for only $1.00 by mail. Put your name and address in the upper left hand corner of a sheet of paper along with the words "Special Tobacco Seed Offer", and enclose a $1 by check, money order or one dollar cash in an envelope. No credit cards for this offer.

Or print out one of our tobacco order blanks, and fill it out. The one dollar includes postage costs, so please do not enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope or extra stamps or money for postage. We will send you a catalog and one packet of tobacco seeds. Offer limited to one packet per family, adults only.

If you want extra packets, the seed will be $1 per packet of 100 seeds, and please add postage of $4 for one packet, and 10 cents for each additional.

Print off this web page, with the instructions for planting and curing for free.

Updated February 6, 2011.