| In times like these, even the most hardened urban | | | | pail of water, then dump the water on the bed of |
| dwellers take another look at the pleasures and | | | | soil that you plan to use, letting the seeds fall where |
| profits of gardening. | | | | they may.) |
| After all, with supermarket prices going up, farmers | | | | Not only are tobacco seeds lazy--they don't like |
| going under, and the economy going tipsy, it's | | | | having to fight up from underneath the ground--but |
| tempting to seed that sideyard, rent a plot from the | | | | the seedlings are incredible wimps. They are |
| city, or even "claim" a bit of underused urban ground | | | | vulnerable to just about anything: overdrying, |
| where no one will notice a tomato plant or two. And | | | | overwatering, too much sunlight, mold. If you live in a |
| gardening does have major benefits. As | | | | colder climate, it's a good idea to start them indoors |
| environmentalists have pointed out for years, every | | | | in late winter, then transplant in late May, when |
| mile a piece of food doesn't travel in getting to your | | | | there's no further possibility of frost. If you sow |
| table is a bit less greenhouse-gas dumped into the | | | | them outside, one frost can destroy all your hard |
| atmosphere. It's a healthy way to save some | | | | work. But if death by ice is an ever-present possibility |
| money, save some oil being burned, and increase | | | | with tobacco, so is death by fire. The plants are so |
| your own understanding of the world, while whittling | | | | sensitive that some farmers have been known to |
| off a few pounds (or more) to boot. No wonder that | | | | drape a sheet over them during high summer to |
| even the First Family is getting into the act, planting | | | | protect them from oversunning. |
| the first White House kitchen garden since before | | | | The plants can literally be cooked if left alone in direct |
| the Truman Doctrine. Gardening for food is never a | | | | sunlight for too many ninety-degree days. And once |
| bad thing, and in a recession it's a great thing. | | | | they wilt in the sun, they never come back. (You |
| Just don't think you can do the same for your | | | | may have heard of Connecticut Shade tobacco, the |
| tobacco supply! | | | | kind grown mostly on the East Coast and which is |
| As the following glimpse into the art of | | | | highly in demand as a cigar wrapper. They call it |
| tobacco-growing will illustrate, growing tobacco is a | | | | Connecticut Shade because it has to spend most of |
| very different prospect from raising a few dozen | | | | its time literally under the shade of huge nylon tents |
| tomatoes, some cukes and a few lettuce heads. First | | | | which protect the crop.) |
| of all, there's your local bylaws to consider. No kidding: | | | | It's also a good idea to think about your own soil, |
| tobacco has so long been a subsidized crop (and, at | | | | and consider whether your area's soil best supports |
| the same time, a heavily regulated one, as the state | | | | tobacco plants. There's a reason that the best |
| has an interest in preventing minors from obtaining | | | | tobacco has traditionally come from only a handful of |
| the smokeable forms of tobacco) that every state | | | | places: certain Latin American valleys; the shady parts |
| has different rules regulating where, how much, and | | | | of Connecticut; Virginia and North Carolina. Tobacco is |
| in what form tobacco can be grown. (If food | | | | (in addition to being wimpy and lazy) very particular |
| gardeners worry about rabbits making off with their | | | | about where it grows. The sandy soil of parts of |
| lettuces, imagine how the tobacco gardener must | | | | Virginia and North Carolina, for example, is perfect for |
| worry about the crop being stolen by would-be | | | | it. That's why those areas were such a boon to |
| makers of illegal cigars and cigarettes!) In many | | | | farmers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: |
| places, if your tobacco is only for personal use, there | | | | they allowed newcomers to America to do all right |
| are no or fewer regulations--but it'd probably be | | | | for themselves, growing a cash crop for which there |
| smart to check, in any case. | | | | was an ever-rising demand. |
| As to the actual growing, there are two main points | | | | Wimpy, lazy, and particular ... who knew tobacco |
| to remember: tobacco seeds are lazy. Tobacco | | | | plants were so much like cats! And we haven't even |
| seedlings are wimpy. | | | | talked about the laborious cutting, curing, and rolling |
| Tobacco seeds are lazy. You don't really "sow" | | | | processes that go into making your favorite cigars. |
| tobacco seeds--you sprinkle them on the ground and | | | | Gardeners might be better off sticking to food |
| let them lie. The seeds don't like being disturbed by | | | | crops, like tomatoes (which even the black-thumbed |
| watering--they're very lazy seeds--so what some | | | | writer of this article has grown successfully). |
| small tobacco gardeners do is to soak the soil first. | | | | Tobacco--and cigars--might be best left to the |
| (Another method is to swish the seeds around in a | | | | experts. |