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Tomatoes and Tobacco

2/14/2013

14 Comments

 
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If you want to get succulent home-grown tomatoes like these - you need to keep tobacco far away from your plants, your greenhouse, your baby starts - all of it.  Tobacco can give tomatoes the disease Tobacco Mosaic Virus (ToMV).  If you chew or are a smoker of tobacco - commercial cig's or organic, do not smoke around your tomatoes and do not touch them without washing your hands thoroughly with soap and water.  
When people come to tour I am very clear about smokers going in my greenhouses - I even threaten to tackle them if they think of touching the door jam.  God forbid a smoker who hangs out around the farmer's market - strange huh - but I have no problem asking them to smoke elsewhere - only for the sake of the tomatoes.

One study I read about showed Tobacco Mosaic Virus present in 40% of commercial tobacco - and that was in the 80's.

The disease can also be spread by many common plants like marigold, petunia, hollyhock and zinnia.  Also nightshades and mints - and a whole slew of others.  5 different kinds of aphids can carry the disease too.
Sometimes the disease can take them out slowly - sometimes quickly - spreading from plant to plant.  Often people don't recognize the link or what is happening to their slowly degrading tomato plants. The disease can live in the soil and plant debris so if you think you've had it - clean up and remove debris instead of composting it.  Grow tomatoes somewhere new and let that area rest.

Rodale's Encyclopedia of Natural Insect & Disease Control is an excellent resource for the home gardener.  I learn so much every time I crack it open.
If you have no choice and the smoker in your life won't keep out of the greenhouse or garden - you may have better luck with a hybrid bred to resist this disease.  When you look at hybrid tomatoes - you often see a bunch of letters after the name - like VFT or others.  "T", or "TMV" is for Tobacco Mosaic Virus and it is your clue that that tomato is resistant.  These would not be good choices for saving seeds of course.  

TMV:
"Leaves may have light and dark green mottling, and at colder temperatures may become spindly.  Fruit may ripen unevenly and develop brown spots."

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Nicotiana alata

Growing Nicotiana - Tobacco

I have been growing, studying and teaching tomatoes for 20 years.  I know this pretty well - and learned it early on from a friend whose husband wouldn't ask his friend to not smoke in their house - yes, this was 20 years ago - and it affected one tomato and then all the rest as well.  She  learned the hard way.  I even had a guy come and buy tomato plants from me - a chain smoker to be sure and he did not believe me.  So he set up my high-altitude, organically raised perfect tomato starts in the garage and smoked all over them - killing them one by one.  He came back with a cheerful, yellow smile to exclaim - "Hell if you weren't right!"  I have never sold him tomatoes again - and probably never will.  AS IF!  
BUT, after all of my protection and teaching I too, can be totally dumb.  I also teach companion planting, integration of growing and also fill my large containers with food, herbs and flowers, always have, always will.  
So - right next to the beautiful iron gate by the entrance to my garden sit two half whiskey barrels - perfect for deep planting.  That year I started with a tumbling tomato, and lots of herbs and flowers to integrate with it.  Oh yeah, I love to grow Nicotiana - (tobacco) for it's magnificently fragrant white flowers.  They come in other colors but the white is the most ethereal.  A perfect moonlight flower and the scent hits you like a ton of bricks at the gate - kapow!!!  I love this plant. I think of it as Nicotiana - not tobacco.  I think of it as a beautiful garden flower that the flying creatures love.  And so - smart me - I planted them together - Nicotiana for beauty, fragrance and the moon and the tumbling tomatoes coming right over the side of the whiskey barrel for snacking and beauty.  Sigh.
Not good.  It took me a while too - wondering what was wrong with this poor tomato.  Over time, leaf mottling began to occur, the plant was wilted and strange looking - it was trying so hard but it just couldn't do it.
And then I hit myself in the head - "Tobacco!" I yelled, "Cord, you will not believe what I did."
The moral of the story is - do not plant nicotine around your tomatoes - they don't like it.  I know Nicotine was sometimes used as a powerful insecticide in the past, but it is not something I would ever mess around with.  Besides, there are many better ways to deal with bugs and disease than a hard-core drug like Nicotine.
I grow it still - in it's own pot - away from the tomatoes and enjoy the white trumpets opening in the evening and blasting me and my last cup of tea for the day into heaven.

Here's a couple of hybrids - yes, me, heirloom grower, I had to look them up - for tobacco smokers.  I don't have any experience with these varieties but hope they will work for you if you have been having trouble with tomatoes and tobacco.  This is not a sure thing - but it could help.  Please look them up yourself to see if they are appropriate for your climate and season length. These are all chosen quickly from a catalog - there are many more to choose from - this is just to get you started.
Bush Early Girl VFFNT Hybrid
Jetsetter VFFNTA Hybrid
Ball's Beefsteak VFFT Hybrid
Big Beef VFFNTA Hybrid
Celebrity VFFNTA Hybrid
Champion II VFNT Hybrid
Cobra VFT Hybrid
Super Marzano VFNT Hybrid
Sweet Treats FFT Hybrid
Sweet Million FNT Hybrid
Sunsugar FT Hybrid

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Nicotiana in mixed planters - but not with tomatoes!
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Healthy tomatoes in Cord's winter greenhouse.
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Ahhhhhh......
14 Comments
Chris Eberhardt
4/30/2013 04:14:00 am

Love your blog, will be moving to Colorado in June and possibly to Chaffee Co., so your experience and advice will be very helpful to me. Will be coming back to your website often. Are you planning to join either Facebook or Pinterest??

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10/18/2013 05:24:16 pm

Great site, was just reading and doing some work when I found this page

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Ken Westby
5/21/2017 06:14:43 am

Very interesting article. I have a question though. My family has raised tobacco (503, 507) as well as the B variety of these for decades for the commercial market. We are located in southern Wisconsin. We have always started our tomatoes and tobacco from seed in the same hot bed about mid to late April. When the tobacco is ready to transplant at 5 inches we plant in the fields. We have always planted the tomato plants in the same field at the end of some of the rows. As far as moisture and pest control, mother nature took care of them both, we took care of cultivating and hoeing. We never experienced any problems with our tomato crop. They grew profusely. We would eat fresh, can juice, and give away bushel after bushel. Although the tobacco business here is dieing, we haven't raised for 20 years. But the memories of 40 years raising them together is still fresh in my mind. I still plant 10 or 20 tobacco plants around the farm just for old times sake.

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George Bouthillier link
6/14/2017 02:26:17 pm

I had a bunch of smokes cigarette butts in my lawn I mowed the lawn and it sucked up the grass and cigarette tobacco into the collection bag of the lawn mower!Can I use this as a mulch in my garden around my tomato and pepper plants!Please reply as soon as possible cause I need to plant and mulch my plants cause its getting late in the season here where I live!Please and Thanks God Bless

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Russell Swanson
7/10/2018 06:13:40 am

Plenty of blooms, they die before any fruit starts, leaves edges turn brown. What is going on. There Better Boy Hybrid.

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Penn Parmenter link
7/14/2018 07:33:43 am

Hi Russell,
First guess is heat and water. Don't know where you are but if you are in southern Colorado we are cooking - even at altitude. Tomato flowers cannot pollinate over 90 degrees so any flowers that are ready to do the deed when the temps are at their highest - won't make it. We heavily mulch our garden beds and containers to help keep steady moisture, especially when it is this hot.
Afternoon shade is helpful to any vegetable in the wild, wild west - even sun-lovers.
Every year is different in Colorado - this one is intense! Do a rain dance everybody!
Penn

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Carrie Mardis
10/8/2019 11:23:46 am

So I just started gardening this year. I have two pots with tomato plants. I came across your page today because I just found a tomato on a plant I didn’t plant. It’s healthier than my others as well. And it’s actually growing in our cigarette butt pot that’s outside. We put it in the back and haven’t really thought much about it and thought a weed was growing. I left it just because I’m curious being new. I know we don’t need to eat it but how is it growing in there? And how is it doing so amazing? Wish I could send a picture

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VAPE 4U link
4/4/2020 04:58:14 am

This pennandcordsgarden blog has been giving us wonderful methods and vaping the topics always,thanks. Mostly following for cigarettes and making e liquid,keep follow the site always.

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Catherine Huang
1/13/2021 07:47:15 am

So much for my brilliant inspiration of planting tobacco or nicotiana as a trap crop for the hornworms...

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Jude Wagner link
1/19/2021 02:49:56 am

Grateful for shharing this

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e cig online NZ link
3/30/2021 05:28:02 am

Oh My God!!! This is a great blog, I am happy that I have come across this one. It’s an amazing blog to read tomatoes and tobacco. Thanks for this wonderful content. I loved reading your article, will definitely give it a try to store as per your advice. Great blog to share!!

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8/31/2021 08:33:24 pm

Growing my own vegetables around the house, this is very fun and also safe for my meals. Healthy cooking is getting more and more attention. Because health nothing can buy.

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11/2/2021 02:00:15 am

Oh My God!!! This is a great blog, I am happy that I have come across this one. It’s an amazing blog to read tomatoes and tobacco. Thanks for this wonderful content. I loved reading your article, will definitely give it a try to store as per your advice. Great blog to share!!
Growing my own vegetables around the house, this is very fun and also safe for my meals. Healthy cooking is getting more and more attention. Because health nothing can buy.


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Siding Contractors Anchorage link
7/22/2022 09:48:28 pm

Thanks great blogg

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    Author

    Penn Parmenter is a high altitude gardener, seedswoman and student of the earth.  She is married to Cord Parmenter - an awesome gardener, gorgeous man and a master blacksmith. Together they own and run a sustainable greenhouse design company, Smart Greenhouses LLC and Penn grows seed for her seed business, Miss Penn's Mountain Seeds.  She is a mother of three sons and an outdoorswoman.  Penn forages wild food, hunts big game, fishes, preserves, maintains a huge organic forest garden and occasionally makes dinner.  At home you can find her in her greenhouses as well as in the wilderness - nose to the ground, butt in the air, trying to identify Colorado natives.    

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