Growing tobacco in climate zone 2

Growing tobacco start to finish

This year I've been making an attempt at growing tobacco leaves to use for making a swedish delicacy called Snus. To make snus, first you need tobacco leaves - this is my diary on the growing of havana tobacco leaves in Swedish climate zone 2(middle of Sweden).

The climate in Sweden is not very forgiving for growing plants, so a early start is needed. I planted the seeds in a tub of soil indoors in the beginning of April, standing directly under a small LED-light.

Planting seeds

After a few weeks the first little leaves started popping up - and one month in they started having their character leaves coming out.

The plants were kept indoors under a small LED-light until early June when they started getting too big for the small box they were planted in. As soon as the risk of nightly frost was over I decided to re-pot them to small individual pots.

Repotting and hardening

Separating each plant was hard since the roots had been intertwined with eachother. I started out careful but lost patience mid way and ripped each plant clear, hoping they would survive the rough treatment.

The nightly temperature out on my glassed balcony was a 15~ deegres celsius, so I placed the plants out there to harden them off for the replanting outdoors.

Going outdoors - 2022-06-16

In the middle of june, the plants had gotten big enough and the nightly outdoors temperature high enough that they could be safely planted in their final growing place. I have a small plot of land where I could put them in a sunny spot, right next to the corn.

Before putting them out the soil needed some work to give the plants the best possible environment. Since the soil is very sandy we made a run to the local horse farm and picked up some 150~ kg of manure to spread out over the plot.

I also added some dried grass as a cover for the plants in case of cold or drought.

Growing steadily - 2022-06-30

Summer is here! - 2022-07-13

This year summer really took its time coming. The weather was pretty bad all through June with some cold nights and lots of rain.

The tobacco plants dont really seem to bothered by it - but since the weather switched from cold to really warm, the growth has really kicked off.