Saffron Crocus

Plant corms as soon as you get them in August or early September, about 6 inches deep and 3-4 inches apart, pointed end up and hairy side down, at 6-12 corms per square foot. Choose full sun and light, well-drained soil, or use a raised bed or a pot at least 11-12 inches square. Water once after planting; sprouts follow in about 30 days and flowers 30-40 days after planting. Saffron flowers on a clock set by the planting date, not by spring warmth. Corms held over to spring sprout in storage and then die, so a corm that misses the late-summer window is simply lost.

Once the leaves have yellowed and dried, stop watering entirely and leave the corms alone. Outdoor plantings need no irrigation at all after the initial watering at planting; natural rainfall is enough. Only saffron grown in a high tunnel or greenhouse gets water again, starting in August. The corms are fully dormant in summer and take up nothing. Water on a dormant corm in warm soil just invites rot, which is the main way home plantings are lost.

Every few years, after the leaves have turned brown and dried and the clump has gotten crowded, lift the corms during dormancy, separate the daughter corms from the spent mother corm, and replant immediately at the usual depth and spacing. Penn State Extension advises dividing every 4-6 years during the July-August dormant period; Nebraska Extension says every 2-5 years. Let crowding and falling flower counts be your trigger rather than the calendar. Each mother corm spends the winter producing several daughter corms stacked on top of it, so a planting silently doubles up on itself until the corms are competing and flower yield drops.

Once flowering starts, walk the bed every morning after the dew or frost has dried and pick the flowers just before they open. Pull the three red stigmas away from the purple petals and yellow stamens, then dry them in an oven or dehydrator at about 200 F until fully brittle. Bloom runs 5-6 weeks, with most flowers arriving in a single two-week rush. The stigma is the spice, and it degrades once the open flower is exposed to sun and wind. Picking closed flowers in the cool of the morning is what preserves the color and aroma compounds you are growing the crop for.

After flowering finishes, the grassy leaves keep growing straight through winter and spring. Cover the planting with deer netting if deer browse your ground, and expect squirrels and voles to dig for the corms themselves in a garden bed. Those winter leaves are the only thing building next year's daughter corms on top of the mother corm. Browse them off and you do not just lose foliage, you lose the crop two seasons out.