flowering tobacco seeding ?

I am a beginner with garden work. I had one flowering tobacco plant, and it created dozens of
seeds. They are extremely tiny. How do spread the seeds to germinate them ?
I need to put them in pots, to start indoors, or outdoors. Do these seeds need to be buried,
watered a lot, etc.......
Nobody here in Toronto Canada seems to know anything about the
Flowering Tobacco plants. I sure need some guidance.

regards,
Jim Brunswick

Jim,

I found this info online for you.

Carol

Tobacco is a very easy plant to grow and requires only 65-70 frost free nights to mature once transplanted outside. Sprinkle the seed on the soil surface, then firm the soil surface to insure good seed to soil contact. Irrigate with a very fine spray, or add water to a saucer under the flower pot. Add water as often as necessary to keep the soil surface moist, but avoid excessive water. Small amounts of fertilizer will be needed to produce the transplants. A tobacco fertilizer should contain little or no chlorine and most of the nitrogen should be in the nitrate form. Once they have grown to 4 or more inches, transplant seedlings to a prepared garden bed.

Hi Glasshead, I would imagine in Toronto your winter will be too cold for these tender seedling plants to survive, so either prick out the seedlings into pots or trays and take inside, keep them in a frost free place till early next spring and then pop them back into the garden where you want them to flower, Or, remove the seed-heads from the plants you already have, once they dry off, shake the seeds from the pods and keep them in an envelope with the name of plant on it and store cool and dry for winter, sew seeds in spring outside, they are annuals and will only flower one season but they scatter their seeds around to germinate and reproduce, we grow them here for the wonderful perfume from the flowers, the tall white flowers give off the best perfume, especially in a nice balmy evening. Good Luck. WeeNel.

Hi glasshead. I'm just a couple of hours northwest of you and I grow flowering tobacco every year. WeeNel has some good advice there about the seedlings not being able to survive our Ontario winters, and the fact that they are annuals - growing, flowering and dying in a single season. For that reason I suspect that if you have seedlings already they will for the most part complete their life cycle indoors before the weather warms enough in the spring to get them outside.

Here's another option to sowing them directly to the garden in the spring that will give them a bit of a head start - winter sowing of the seeds, and you can start now! This method works very well for those of us that have to deal with extreme winter weather, and you can use it for any seed for hardy annuals (like flowering tobacco), perennials, or anything that requires cold stratification.

o Collect some empty milk jugs or 2 litre pop bottles (the clear ones). Discard the caps, you won't need them.

o Remove the labels and clean them out well with hot soapy water with a bit of bleach added and rinse well.

o Put some drainage holes in the bottom - I use either an electric drill or an old soldering iron (don't breathe in the fumes).

o Cut almost all the way around the container about 2/3 of the way up, leaving a little "hinge" uncut.

o Put at least 4 inches of moist potting soil in the bottom part of the container.

o Sprinkle the Nicotiana (Flowering Tobacco) seeds on top and gently press into the soil.

o Tape the top back down on the container. I use duct tape and it seems to work well.

o Label your containers with a good weather proof marker or put a marker stick right inside the container.

o Put containers outside in a somewhat sheltered location so they won't blow over on you. I usually put mine in those folding milk crate like containers that you can buy at Canadian Tire. Just make sure that they drain well if you put them into another container like that.

o Check them occassionally to make sure they have sufficient moisture. If there is condensation on the inside of the container it's fine. The winter snows and spring rains usually keep mine watered well until some time near the end of April.

The containers will act like little mini-greenhouses. The soil warms up quickly in the late winter/very early spring, and you could see some germination as early as mid to late March. As the sun heats up keep an eye on how hot it's getting inside the containers. At some point you will need to cut some slits in the top part of the container for more ventilation, just like you would need to crack open some vents in a real greenhouse.

You can remove the top part of the containers completely once you're sure there won't be any more killing frosts, but you shouldn't have to worry too much about less than that. Because the seedlings have been grown outdoors in a more natural, but enhanced, environment they are tougher than those you would have started indoors, and they can usually be planted out into the garden earlier too.

--Ginny