I think there might be some prohibitions or restrictions on unlicensed growing of tobacco in the UK, not sure. Be careful to not run afoul of the law! Or, at the least, try not to get caught. Nosy neighbors could spell trouble. A half acre of tobacco would not escape aerial observation. But a half dozen plants can give you a year's worth of pipe or cigarette tobacco. For general use, a mainstream Burley would probably suit you fine.
The hardest part is starting the seed. The sprouting seeds are extremely delicate, fragile, and sensitive to environmental factors.
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The above kit works great for starting tobacco seeds. You want the 70 place, self watering kit. It has an absorbent mat underneath the puck tray that helps with water retention. Fill from one of the empty corner holes until water is up over the "ramp". You will know it when you see it. You MUST water sprouting tobacco seeds from below! Anyway, first, add water to the system and keep adding water until the peat pucks have absorbed all that they can, they are fully expanded, and there is water remaining in the lower tray. Sprinkle a couple hundred seeds out on a white paper plate. Lick the end of a wooden toothpick and use it to pick up a single seed. Place it on top of the puck, on the top surface, not in the central hole and not on the web-like "biodegradeable" fabric cladding around the puck. Pick up another, the same way, and place it 120 degrees around from the first, and then a third. A tiny wiping motion is usually needed to leave the seed behind on the puck. Do that to all that you intend to use. I suggest twice as many pucks as you intend to grow into adult plants. Three seeds per puck. You will thin to one per puck when you transplant. Do not bury them or cover them. Leave them on the surface of the moist peat puck. If you have a good loupe such as the excellent Belomo 10x Triplet or pocket microscope such as the Carson Micro-Brite, you can see the seeds begin to swell and split in a day or three, and then a little stub of a root will emerge, soon sprouting hairy rootlets. At this stage the sprouts need to start getting some sun exposure every day. Tobacco seeds do not contain ANY nutrition for the seedlings and they must begin photosynthesis right away, or die. You must never for a moment let them dry out, though. In another week or so you should have the first green leave spreading their arms to the sun, and they should be standing up, and stuffing their roots into the peat. When they have their second set of true leaves, unwrap the pucks carefully, and plant them in cups or pots or bags big enough for roots to go at least 4" deep. Keep them well watered and give them lots of sun. Don't let them get cold and don't expose them to high temperatures, either. Gradually leave them outdoors for longer and longer, in less and less ideal conditions, to toughen the seedlings. By the time they are 6" tall, you should be transplanting them into your garden. Spray immediately with BT or Spinosad. BT is a bacteria that makes caterpillars which feed on tobacco leaves sicken and die. Spinosad is a little more broad spectrum. Neither is particularly toxic to humans and neither will affect the taste of tobacco even up to the day of harvest, if used as directed. Fertilize as you see fit but absolutely avoid all chlorides or any sort of chlorine. It will make your tobacco burn poorly.
That's the hard part. Now just wait two or three months. When the first leaves near the base turn completely yellow, pick them. Those are the "mud lugs" and you can wash and cure them, or toss them, as you see fit. But the next leaves up from the lugs are the Seco grade, very important as wrappers and as blending agents or to bulk out a filler blend. Pick when they get yellow mottle or spots, or curl at the tips or get brown at the edges. You can pick earlier but waiting until fully mature gives better flavor. It also invites bugs to eat them. Neem oil is good against aphids but don't spray this within a couple weeks of harvest. Luckily aphids do not cause heavy damage. Grasshoppers and caterpillars are your main villains. Ladybugs can help control aphids, and you can buy them by the thousand or the million, online.
When the plant starts to grow a flower top, break it off. From that point you must monitor the plants closely for suckers. Those are little leaf or stem buds that sprout up where the big leaves meet the main stalk. Break them off. You want all energy sent to the big harvestable leaves. If you grow only one variety you could let one plant flower, and go to seed, so to not have to buy more seed.
Most tobacco varieties grow fairly tall, 5 to as much as 9 feet tall. Blow-downs are common, and sometimes a plant will just lay over onto the ground, so be ready to stake them up as needed.
Tobacco can carry a disease that is quite harmful to tomatoes and some other vegetables. Most gardeners ensure that there is a good buffer area between tobacco and tomatoes.
When you pick your tobacco, string the leaves on stainless steel fishing leader wire or aluminum electric fence wire. Space them an inch or two apart, and hang in your tobacco barn. In a month or two, you should have color cured tobacco. The moisture slowly evaporates and the central stem and ribs shrink. The leaves will turn from green to yellow or brown. Leave them hang for up to two months. You want reasonable but not excessive humidity and temperature, and if there are slight daily swings of each, so much the better. Monitor your hanging leaves daily, for caterpillars or the damage that they cause. Your first sign sometimes is the caterpillar's droppings on the floor, especially from the Tobacco Hornworm, which grows to 3" long and eats about 50x its weight in tobacco per day, with a single specimen able to ruin 100 or more leaves. They stand out in UV light at night, just sayin. Pick them off while still tiny, and squash them without mercy.
I don't use an active fermentation process. You can, and maybe you should. I don't. I pack my color cured leaves in airtight bins, and open them once every two months or so, to let any generated ammonia escape, and eventually I end up packing them in 2 gallon zip lock bags, or bigger for bigger leaves. If the leaves crack, mist them LIGHTLY with water to bring them back into case, which is where they are neither soggy and floppy, nor dry and crackly. Too damp and you get mold. After a year you should have a very smokable product though I have rolled and smoked literally right off the plant, in the case of the lower lugs that cured on the stem. Aging past 5 years generally is thought to be counterproductive, and less than 6 months doesn't really do anything.
Pipe smokers often prefer a tobacco that has gone through the Cavendish process, or that has had additions of honey, molasses, glycerine, or other moistening agents, and flavorings such as apple or cherry byproducts or essence. You can also add small amounts of flavoring tobacco such as Latakia or other Syrian or Macedonian or Turkish varieties. Louisiana Perique that has actually undergone the Perique process can be a very distinctive addition to pipe blends. Go easy, that is very powerful stuff, the true Perique. You might also find that a well cured and shredded Burley in proper case suits you just fine, and is especially appropriate in a corn cob pipe or other more rustic sort of smoking appliance. Many Cuban seed cigar varieties have been used in pipe blends, too. Burley typically makes up about 40% of a cigarette blend, I am told, but no reason why you can't roll straight Burley. I would go with a darker Burley than the Golden Burley that I grew this year for cigar wrapper, or both a light and a dark.
There are lots of online resources where you can dive deep into the subject. I am FAR from expert, this being only my second grow and second rolling year, but that thumbnail above ought to get you started asking the questions from the experts that you might want answered.