Gadenin日本語Get the appHow to count the saffron year
Start the year at the end of summer, not in spring. Everything about saffron makes sense once you accept that the plant's growing season is the cold half of the year and its rest is the warm half. That single inversion is why gardeners who treat it like a spring crocus lose it: they water it in summer, and they tidy the leaves away in winter.
| Part of the year | What the plant is doing | Your job |
|---|---|---|
| Late summer | Dormant, buds initiating inside the corm | Plant new corms; lift and divide congested blocks; keep the bed dry |
| Early to mid autumn | Flowering, leaves emerging | Pick every morning; separate and dry stigmas the same day |
| Late autumn | Flowering over, leaves lengthening | Feed with a low-nitrogen bulb fertilizer; clear weeds by hand |
| Winter | Leaves growing whenever it is above 40F (4C) | Protect leaves from grazing; do not cut or mulch over them; water only if bone dry |
| Late winter to early spring | Corm bulking up fastest | Second feed; keep the block weed-free and in full light |
| Late spring | Leaves yellowing and dying back | Stop watering and feeding; mark the bed's position before it disappears |
| Early to midsummer | Fully dormant underground | Nothing at all; keep irrigation off the bed |
Late summer: the decisions that set the year
This is the only part of the year when the corms can be moved, and it is when new plantings go in. Get corms into the ground before the flower buds start moving, so that roots are working by the time the flowers appear. If a block is three or four years old and gave more leaves than flowers last autumn, this is the moment to lift it, grade the corms, discard the shriveled old ones and any that are soft, and replant only the large grades at four to six inches (10-15 cm) deep.
It is also the last chance to fix drainage. Once the corms are down and rooting you will not disturb the bed again for years, so grit, raised edges and anything else the site needs all happen now.
Autumn: three weeks of daily attention
Flowers usually appear two to three weeks after the first real cooling and wetting of the soil, and the block flowers over roughly two to three weeks rather than all at once. During that stretch you need to be over the bed every morning, because the stigmas are worth picking on the day the flower opens and not much after that. Everything else in the saffron year is undemanding; this is the part that cannot be postponed.
As flowering finishes, the leaves take over. Feed once the last flowers are gone, weed by hand, and then leave the block to grow.
If rain is forecast on a morning when flowers are open, pick before it arrives. Wet flowers are still usable, but the threads take longer to dry properly and finish paler.
Winter and spring: the invisible half of the crop
From late autumn to late spring the plant looks like a clump of coarse grass and nothing appears to be happening. In fact this is when next autumn's harvest is built, so the leaves are protected, fed, kept in full light and left completely alone until they yellow of their own accord. Netting against rabbits and deer belongs here, as does making sure nothing shades the block.
When a third of the leaf length has turned yellow in late spring, stop watering and feeding entirely. Let the leaves go brown and dry on the plant; only pull them away once they detach with no resistance.
Summer: doing nothing, on purpose
The dormant months need no work, only restraint. Keep water off the bed, keep summer planting out of it, and let the ground heat. In a climate with a genuinely wet summer, the alternative is to lift the corms after leaf die-back and store them warm and dry in open trays until the end of summer, which achieves the same baking artificially. Either way, the corms need heat and dryness now or they will not set flower buds for autumn.
The five dates that make next year easier
Write down five things every year: the day the first flower opened, the day the last one did, the total flower count, the dried weight, and the day the leaves finished in spring. Add a note on how wet the previous summer was. Over three seasons those entries turn into a picture of your own site, telling you when to start checking the bed each autumn, whether the planting is gaining or declining, and when it is due to be lifted and divided. It is a few lines a year, and it is the difference between guessing and knowing.