Backyard Botanist: Potting Your Tobacco Plants

By Kevin Robinson in Miscellaneous on May 11, 2010 6:00PM

These plants are ready to be repotted!

Mix the soil and the water well, so the soil is dark and damp, with no clumps or dry patches.

You don\'t need fancy pots for your plants - we reused pots from other gardening projects.

Gently easy the live plant from its cell, pushing slowly from the bottom of the cell.

The plant should come out in one piece.

The white strands are the roots. These will grow bigger and deeper in the new pots, so it\'s important that you use posts with enough room for the plant to grow bigger in.

Pack the soil firmly into the new pots, leaving room room for the plant.

Tamp down a hole in the pot to seat the plant in.

Set the plant in the hole.

Make sure that the newly potted plant is completely covered with soil, and the leaves are above the dirt.

And now the best plants are potted up and ready to finish growing. In a few weeks, we\'ll check back on them (and the weather) and put them in their large pots out back.

It's been a few weeks since we last checked in our tobacco crop, and they've grown quite a bit. With the days getting longer and the weather set to warm up soon, we'll be moving our plants outside into fresh air and better sunlight. In the meantime, though, they've gotten too big for the cells we planted them in. Over the weekend, we repotted the plants, using larger pots and fresh soil, so they can grow a more developed root system and get bigger before we move them outside.

Tobacco plants are pretty hearty - growing them in Chicago's climate won't be too difficult, but it's important to make sure that they've grown enough to take root in larger pots and thrive outdoors. The smaller pots that we used this weekend will help the plants make the transition from planting trays they sprouted in.

Just like before, make sure that you use fresh, high-quality fertile potting soil and clean water. Mix the soil with water in a large mixing bowl, being careful not to get the soil too wet. Mix the dirt well, breaking up clumps of dirt and dry patches, and making sure that all of it is damp. Take the empty pot and fill it with soil, packing it down firmly, but not too hard, and taking care to leave an indentation where the plant will sit. Then ease the live plant out of the cell. Your tobacco plants should have roots all the way through the soil from the potting tray - those are the thin white strands you see. Set the plant down in the dirt of the pot, and cover it well so it sits firmly in the pot.

After you've repotted the best of your tobacco plants, water each one. The trick to watering plants is to make sure that the pot feels heavy and the soil looks dark. Set the plants in direct sunlight, and keep them watered. Tobacco plants take a lot of water, so it's important to keep the soil from drying out. In a few more weeks, they should be ready for large containers and a fun summer outdoors.