There is nothing sillier than sticking a handful of leaves into your mouth and setting fire to them. Equally silly in my view is the habit of filling one’s nostrils with dust in order to sneeze, or mixing ground-up leaves with molasses and chewing them. Although cigarettes, snuff and chewing tobacco are delights long known to the indigenous people of South America the main culprit for the introduction of tobacco to Europe was Sir Walter Ralegh, aided and abetted by Queen Elizabeth.
Nicotiana tabacum belongs to the large natural order of plants called the Solanaceae, but the good news is that it also contains plants which are important from an economic as well as an ornamental point of view. Those economically important include the potato (Solanum tuberosum), the tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum), sweet and hot peppers (Capsicum annuum and C. frutescens), and the egg plant or boulanger (Solanum melongena). Other important ornamental plants in the Solanaceae include Brugmansia (Angel’s trumpets) which as I previously mentioned include the datura, cestrum, brunfelsia, petunia, solandra, schizanthus, streptosolen and salpiglossis. Many of these you already know, and all are worthy of a place in anyone’s garden. The popularity of the ornamental members of the Solanaceae is due in no small part to the fact that they have the most alluring scents in the late evening and during the night, especially the ornamental tobacco varieties and shrubs like Lady of the Night (Cestrum nocturnum). Many of the commercial and ornamental members of the Solanaceae yield medicinal as well as the highly addictive tobacco. The pre-war and post-war gardener relied on the tobacco plant for the most powerful insecticides then known to man. Liquid nicotine may still be produced for use in sprays. It was once used to impregnate specially shredded paper which used to be placed in heaps throughout glasshouses in Europe and North America. These heaps were then set on fire and killed every living thing. It was a highly dangerous operation. Nicotine was far more dangerous than today’s organo-phosphorous insecticides such as Malathion which are dangerous enough and are being superseded for the moment by a range of less toxic insecticides based on the pyrethrum plant. Evolution being what it is, I have little doubt that pests and diseases will develop resistance to them. I expect that scientists will eventually have to tinker with the genetic make-up of our major pests and diseases to render them harmless as they are starting to do with the malaria carrying mosquito. Meanwhile, those of us favouring natural biological control will just have to continue to accept a minimum level of infestation of pests like the Red Spider Mite, so there is something for the natural predator to eat.
For those of you who smoke and drive, don’t. Cigarette ash can blow into your eyes, and cigarettes have been known to fall out of the mouths of people travelling at high speed. This can not only be painful but highly dangerous. Better to spend the money on plants instead. Don’t risk getting cancer and putting your family and friends at risk.
Use a standard seed tray box for sowing seeds. A standard seed tray has an inside measurement of 14” x 8” x 2”. Nowadays seed trays are made from plastic. In the old days they were made out of wood and many still are, and are very easy to make. The pieces of woods used to provide the base are 14” long and a fraction less than 4” wide, so that a small space is left for drainage, but not large enough for compost to run out. In the old days gardeners used to place a layer of rotted leaf mould over the base of the box to act as a kind of reservoir for water but also to prevent compost running out.
I cannot quite believe what I have just heard. Yet more snow is being forecast for the next few days and it is now freezing on the roads in the UK.
May your God go with you wherever you live in this marvellous country of ours, and make sure that your plants have sufficient water to last the day.
