In the home gardens of American farms tobacco plants were once almost an expected standard, and recently this old tradition of growing tobacco in the garden has become quite popular again. Nicotiana is a relatively undemanding, but very visually appealing plant - the only thing to keep in mind is that tobacco seeds should not be planted in gardens where children or animals play because the nicotine contained in the plant is poisonous.
If that is not a problem, it's a really beautiful garden experiment to raise tobacco plants from seed and overwinter them in large plant containers. The next year you will have magnificent tall tobacco shrubs and a bountiful harvest.
The first tobacco seeds found their way to Europe on Spanish exploration ships. Already in 1559 the Spanish King Felipe II ordered the creation of a tobacco plantation next to the former capital Toledo, in an area called "Los Cigarrales" because of the many cicadas (Spanish: cigarra). The genus name Nicotiana however goes back to a French consul: In 1560, Jean Nicot sent several packages of tobacco seeds from Lisbon to Paris.
As an ornamental plant tobacco has long been established in our gardens. The exceptionally lush flowers and the size of the plant make it a real eye-catcher in the flower bed. But there are also good reasons to grow tobacco for personal consumption as a useful plant from (preferably biological, open-pollinated, non-hybrid and non-genetically modified) seeds, as tobacco farming is one of the agricultural areas with the highest pesticide use. Alone between the sowing of the seed in the greenhouse and planting the seedlings out in the field, up to 15 pesticide doses are administered.
