The Designer Gardens

Saffron is a beautiful and tough little plant that produces the worlds most expensive spice …

This is the start of a new project for me , my aim is to produce my own Saffron for cooking ..

My bulbs arrived on August 9th with the growing instructions , … Plants your bulbs as soon as possible ,ideally early August , they will produce beautifuly scented blooms in 4-6 weeks .

Once you have your beautiful blooms you may start harvesting the Saffron , it is done by collecting the plants stigmas or flowers , either by scissors / hands or tweezers , preferably at dawn or just as the crocus opens.

Harvest can last several weeks from October through to November .
Once you have finished harvesting you need to seperate the orange / red stigmas from the flowers and let them dry out thoroughly , after they have dried out they can be kept for several years providing they are stored in an airtight Jar ……

Progress so far ! will they flower this year or not ?
The leaves should be long and thin and mustn’t be cut off after flowering as these thin leaves allow bulbs to regenerate and enlarge year on year to produce 3 smaller bulbs which you can replant if you wish ………

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