I did see it in dominion seed house's catalogue. Online you can go to www.dominion-seed-house.com

Select flower seeds, then miscellaneous, then on the left-most side click on 'cigarette tabacco'. It's around $12 for a seed pack.

My aunt tried growing some one year, but I am not sure how it worked out for her.

Richters sells it on line as well.

Check out Seedman.com. I haven't checked the internet extensively for the 'best' site, but have found Seedman.com to be the best I have found.

Seedpacks there usually are around two or three dollars for tobacco. They also sell how-to books, videos and other items for tobacco growing and processing.

I have bought two different types of Havana tobacco seeds from them and even though it's really too late to start the seeds I couldn't help but try a few of them anyways. Havana 608 is supposedly an easy one to grow so I'm trying that one. Some of the seeds have germinated after about a week or so. I usually have bad luck with seedlings so this will be the critical stage for me.

Good luck, Jeff

Have you ever tried raw tabacco that hasn't been properly processed? I worked on a Tabacco Farm one summer while in University. We picked Tabacco and it was put to dry in Kilns on the farm. On occasion we would pluck a few dry leaves from a kiln to grind up. It was nothing like any cigarette I had ever smoked. It was pretty raunchy stuff, a good way to quit smoking if you ask me,lol.

Burpee's or Gurney's also sell seed.
-Ed

Good story about your time helping out on the tobacco farm. I know they say tobacco can be smoked after 6 months of curing, is better if cured for 12 months, but is at it's best after 18 months of curing.

Have to be honest, I'm not much of a smoker with the exception of an occassional cigar. But there's just something about the tobacco plant and the whole processing process that seems neat to me. Growing some of the different varieties and seeing how they develop would be an interesting experiment.

I had purchased some Virginia tobacco pelleted seeds from Seedrack.com about 6 months ago and had a good germination rate with them. But they became leggy and died. The pelleted seeds were much easier for me to deal with when planting than my tobacco seeds that aren't pelleted. Seedrack probably still carries them.

Good luck, Jeff

Jeff, Wow! How Kewl! Please keep posting on this topic, I'm interested to know how it goes for you. I'm in the same zone/state and wondered about it too.

I would love to grow some just for the exotic looking foliage. Does anyone know where I can get seeds. I would trade for some seeds I could collect here on our island. heers, Banana Joe

Probably the best selection of rare and heirloom tobacco seed varieties is from New Hope Seed Company. David, the owner, is passionate about finding old varieties that are no longer commercially available and keeping them available to home gardeners. Much of the seed others are selling originated from NHS's work.

Even if you don't smoke, the plants are amazing as ornamentals.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rare Tobacco Seed

New Hope Seed have the largest range of smokable tobacco seeds but can only supply them to USA customers, seedman offers some questionable advice I would not use a wooden kiln as they reccomend it won't last long with the humidity you need to cure tobacco & could badly affect the taste of your tobacco depending on the wood used & the tobacco shredder they reccommend will fall apart after cutting about 3-4 kilos of tobacco www.grandadtobacco.com sell a tobacco packer for half the price which is considerably better for cutting your tobacco & should last a lifetime.
I got my seeds from coffinails which is worth looking at purely for the information in the forums even if you don't get your seeds there.

Here are the basics of growing tobacco in the UK which is what i do:
Seeds are surface sown in march I don't bother with propagators I just sow them in an old ice cream tub covered with plastic wrap & left in a warm dark place until they germinate a couple of days later usually with 99% germination rate.
Then they are moved to a warm light area but not in direct sunlight.
After a couple of weeks the plastic wrap is removed.
When they are large enough to handle They are thinned out to 3" newspaper pots (made using a tin can & a jar).
In mid May to early June depending on the weather they are hardened off & planted out 18" apart.
Leaves & seeds are harvested in September/October usually I only allow 2 plants of each variety to flower 1 for seeds & the other just in case the first is damaged by footballs from next door. The rest of the plants are topped & any flower buds are pinched out so they put their energy into leaf production.
The leaves are dried over a week or so until they are yellow or brown (colour depending on the variety).
I then cure the leaves using a slightly modified variation of the polystyrene curing chamber plans given on the coffinails site. Curing takes about 4 weeks.
You then have smokable tobacco although i leave it for at least 6 months before I consider touching it as the flavour improves with age.
It is stored dry in bin liners or cardboard boxes in the attic & brought back to case cut up & smoked as needed.
Each plant produces an average of 100 grams of finished tobacco.

Here is a link that might be useful: Coffinails