Well, I got moved into the new house a week ago and got the plants in the ground by Thursday. The soil wasn't great, I think the builder (8 years ago) cleared the woods and trucked in some fill and put some loam on top that is too clay-ey for tobacco. He did dig out a garden about 40' X 40' that I was able to use that has decent soil depth. The depth in the rest of the yard isn't more than 5 inches, so next year, if I want to expand, I'm going to have to truck in lots of compost and manure. The existing garden plot only gets 8 hours of sun, so it's not well placed for tobacco but that's all I had at my old place.
So I added some bone meal, blood meal, fertilizer and peat moss and put the plants in. I haven't found my electronic soil tester kit yet after moving, so I had to wing it. I got 148 plants in, thanks to planting the orientals in traditional close spacing. I'll get some pics up soon, but here's what I planted, heavy emphasis on flue cured types:
6 Gold Dollar
6 African Red
6 Reams
6 Bonanza
6 Gold Leaf
6 Silk Leaf
7 Hickory Pryor
12 Virginia Bright Leaf
6 White Mammoth
6 Shirey
6 Harrow Velvet
6 Lonnie's Havana
6 PA Broadleaf
3 Swarr
18 Izmir
12 Djebel
12 Harmanliiska Basma
12 Alma Ata
6 Azteca Rustica
Too late to save seeds, but I'm hoping to get some good leaf. I may have to top the plants by sometime in mid August whether or not they're flowering. I will be curing in the basement which has some windows on the curing end and is fairly dry. Right now in the summer it's at 60% humidity and 68F. So I should be able to control the curing conditions somewhat.
We love the house and the 12 acres. The house is definitely an upgrade for us and it's an upgrade for the chickens, too. The previous owner kept chickens and had a much nicer coop than we did and he left it.