In regards to the expensive nature of saffron…
‘stares into distance, takes a long drag off of what is, if you look closely, in fact a candy cigarette’
what if I told you…that saffron…is actually not that hard to grow at home for your own use.
Oh look a place you can buy the bulbs.
If you live in a climate colder than zone 6…as I do…plant them in containers and move the containers into a basement or garage during the winter.
They bloom in fall, and are quite lovely. And also you get saffron.
Can Saffron handle Zone 13?
They grow it in the deserts of the Middle East (with a bit of irrigation.) It can handle the worst heat you can throw at it.
What it does NOT like is wet feet all the time. If the soil is soaking wet too often, it will rot. So if you live somewhere with a lot of rainfall, I’d try raised beds or pots that can be protected from excess rain.
So my Arizonan (Phonecian to be precise) ass should be perfectly fine, then?
Not only fine it would probably love the shit out of your area, so long as you threw it some water now and then.
Seriously, here’s a saffron farm in the desert of Afghanistan, and the saffron is happy as shit there.
What’s zone 6?
Growing zones are a measure of how cold it gets in a given area in winter, which is a limiting factor in where many things will grow.
Zone 6 means that the minimum expected temperature will not get below -10F.
Here is a gardening zone map of the USA.
I’m in zone 5, supposedly, right on the tip of Iowa’s nose where it bumps out into Illinois, but more realistically given our not-uncommon cold snaps here we’re about a zone 4.
So if you live in any of the light green through pink-orange areas, saffron will grow just fine for you on its own in your regular old dirt. It will grow in hotter zones as well, but the continental US only goes up to zone 10 and so most US based companies will advertise plants as ‘being suited for zones 5 through 10′ even if a plant can take hotter temps.
First of all, it’s always a delight to see you encouraging agricultural anarchy on my dash. Please continue.
Second: I can’t speak to most of the US but if you’re on the CO front range and put Saffron in the ground, you’re going to have Saffron forever. It’s literally coming up out of my parent’s lawn and has completely overrun a neighbor’s garden. This is the opposite of a problem.
Third: Bees love it. Honeybees, bumblebees, little bees and big bees. Late-season butterflies and moths love it too. support your local pollinators.
Fourth: It’s worth growing for the sheer, visceral delight of giving your friends that cook a lump of homegrown saffron for free and telling them you grew it yourself and watching them go >:O as they are both tremenously impressed with your ability to do plant magic and enraged by the bullshittery that is the modern agricultural market.
