Tomatoville® Gardening Forums


Notices

General information and discussion about cultivating herbs.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old May 8, 2019   #1
Whwoz
Tomatovillian™
 
Whwoz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Victoria, Australia
Posts: 870
Default Saffron

Have been toying with the idea of growing this for several years and had the opportunity to get some just before Christmas and again at the local farm machinery field days, called Farm World.

Eleven of the first dozen have come up and I am not expecting the last one too, scratching around it cannot be seen. Of the 51 from farm world 28 are up, more will come through yet and a quick check this morning found one pulled out. So photos below are of pulled out plant with side shoots on corm, one that has been up for 10 to 14 days and one that has been up for 6 or 7 weeks.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg DSC_0027_resized.JPG (109.8 KB, 128 views)
File Type: jpg DSC_0029_resized.JPG (102.0 KB, 129 views)
File Type: jpg DSC_0030_resized.JPG (139.1 KB, 129 views)
Whwoz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old May 8, 2019   #2
PlainJane
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Always been curious about it; never grown it.
  Reply With Quote
Old May 9, 2019   #3
bower
Tomatovillian™
 
bower's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Posts: 6,794
Default

I grew saffron one year. You can't overwinter them here of course. Expensive to buy a dozen, the flowers were gorgeous in the fall. And produced a wee crumble of spice.
It looks like your bulbs are dividing, Whwoz? I mean the side shoots, will they form little new ones at the end of season? You will have a crop forever, if that's the case.
bower is offline   Reply With Quote
Old May 9, 2019   #4
Worth1
Tomatovillian™
 
Worth1's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Den of Drunken Fools
Posts: 38,539
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by bower View Post
I grew saffron one year. You can't overwinter them here of course. Expensive to buy a dozen, the flowers were gorgeous in the fall. And produced a wee crumble of spice.
It looks like your bulbs are dividing, Whwoz? I mean the side shoots, will they form little new ones at the end of season? You will have a crop forever, if that's the case.
The middle eastern good stuff is around $252 an ounce.

Roughly about the same price for an ounce of good marijuana in an area that it is highly illegal.
In other words Austin Texas less $150 Conroe Texas more $260.
A field of saffron could be a good thing to consider.

I have a wee bit of the good stuff (saffron) here some place.
Worth1 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old May 9, 2019   #5
Nematode
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: massachusetts
Posts: 1,710
Default

Saffron is free, its the tweezing it out of the flowers that costs $250/oz.
Wouldn't mind having a few here to mess with though.
Nematode is offline   Reply With Quote
Old May 9, 2019   #6
mcsee
Tomatovillian™
 
mcsee's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Victoria. Australia
Posts: 543
Default

Woz told us about him purchasing and growing Saffron and it's something my wife has wanted to do for years, so we ordered 25 corms @ $2.00 each.



We were pleasantly surprised when we planted out the 38 corms that arrived in the box.
mcsee is offline   Reply With Quote
Old May 10, 2019   #7
Whwoz
Tomatovillian™
 
Whwoz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Victoria, Australia
Posts: 870
Default

Bower, yes I believe that the corms will multiply from each of the side shoots. We were told that they multiply up quickly and at the rate they are sideshooting I believe they will, just need to keep the birds from pulling them out.

For the spice, each flower has three stamens, which need to be picked before the sun dries them out in the morning otherwise the quality drops off fairly rapidly from what we have been told. Mind you they flower in March here when the days can still be rather warm.

Mcsee, sounds like you got the value pack.

Last edited by Whwoz; May 10, 2019 at 12:10 AM.
Whwoz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old May 10, 2019   #8
LDiane
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Default

It's the stigma that is used, not the stamens.
  Reply With Quote
Old May 10, 2019   #9
Worth1
Tomatovillian™
 
Worth1's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Den of Drunken Fools
Posts: 38,539
Default

Worth1 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old May 27, 2019   #10
Whwoz
Tomatovillian™
 
Whwoz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Victoria, Australia
Posts: 870
Default

Looks like we have 61 out of the 63 planted up and growing. Possibility of the other two being up and planted in the wrong box after the Magpie pulled them out. Going from the number of shoots on some of the corms, I reckon that they will multiply by 3 on average, with up to 6 possible.
Whwoz is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 04:45 PM.


★ Tomatoville® is a registered trademark of Commerce Holdings, LLC ★ All Content ©2022 Commerce Holdings, LLC ★