Can I Grow Saffron?

Where Saffron Grows

• The saffron crocus is the only one of 75 species of crocus flowers that produces the saffron spice. Grow this particular crocus in your backyard garden as long as you live in an area where there is dry, limestone ground, mild rainy winters and hot, dry summers (such as USDA zones 6 to 8). In addition to being grown in Spain, Greece, Iran and India among other foreign countries, it's also grown in the US. The Mennonite people of Pennsylvania have been growing it for generations.

When to Plant

• Plant your saffron crocus corms, a type of bulb, in the summer, and the flowers will be ready to pick and process in the fall. Divide the plants every four years or so to increase the number of blooms. One bulb will most likely only produce two blooms the first year, but by the third year, the same bulb can produce up to eight flowers. They require very little attention, and they are resistant to pests.

Collecting the Saffron

• Although the saffron crocus is easy to grow, it does take patience to collect the actual saffron from the flowers. At harvest time, pick open flowers and then dissect the threads, which are actually the flower's stigmas, from each flower by hand and set them aside. Each flower only contains three stigmas. With 50 bulbs planted in the first year, it's likely you will end up with less than 1 tbsp. of spice from all the plants together.

Why to Grow It

• Give the labor-intensive work at harvest time and the very small yield of saffron spice from it, many people probably wonder why one would want to take on such an endeavor. The answer: it's potentially lucrative. A little bit can bring in considerable money. According to the Union County College Faculty website, some retailers get as much as $315 per ounce for saffron. That is over $5,000 per pound. Of course, you'll need around 75,000 flowers to make one pound of saffron, and you'll spend a lot of time plucking those stigmas.