Growing Saffron is becoming more familiar and popular each year. More and more people are realizing that they can grow it in many ways and in backyards. What began centuries ago in the Middle East as a major crop has now spread throughout the world. I came across an article dated about three years ago about a farm growing saffron described as being the largest saffron farm in the U.S. It is only one quarter of an acre in size! There may be larger Saffron farms now, but compare this to Iran whixh produces tons of the saffron spice!

Each flower produces three orange threads which are the stigmas. They pluck, dry, and store them in a dark area. It takes 70 flowers to produce one gram of the spice and 75,000 to produce one pound of Saffron. As Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, it is easy to see why!

it is the labor in harvesting the spice that makes it so expensive at about $5000 a pound. People pick the entire flowers in the morning before ten a.m., as soon as they show, if possible. They then take them inside, where, later in the day, they pluck out and dry the orange stigmas or threads.

Growing Saffron in the Backyard

Backyard growing can take many forms. In the ground planting, pots, and crates are possible. The corms are planted about 4′ deep and grow as fall approaches, bloom soon after that if they are going to bloom that year. The plant goes dormant over the summer from May to September, and grow and divide from winter to spring.

If you plant them in crates, you can stack them out of the way; you can move pots or leave them standing, and you can remove the corms, etc. Each corm if left in the ground, will divide and increase gradually to about 18 corms after 3 years. At that point, they need to be dug up, sorted, and replanted abd the largest corms replanted.