Lullabelle
Midlands, England
Yesterday evening I mowed the front lawn and did some weeding and tidying whilst the weather is still dry. There is more to do but after about 1 and a half hours I was done in. Definitely feel it today though.
What's going on in your garden (2023)?
- Thread starter SatNavSaysStraightOn
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All this talk of sunflowers:
From a few years ago.
From a few years ago.
Another 5 mts cleaned up this morning. Almost there!
Did she ever harvest saffron from them? And will you? I grew a few saffron bulbs once and did harvest it. But a few filaments don't go a long way...
Some flower pics from one of the farms we visited today:
A little investigation tells me that each saffron crocus produces 3 pistils, which have to be harvested by hand.
1 kg of saffron requires 750,000 pistils, which means 750 pistils (approx), or 250 plants, will provide 1 gram.
Makes you wonder who on earth discovered the delicious stuff and how, doesn't it?
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She did at the beginning but soon stopped simply because she didn't have many bulbs at the time.
It is my intention to harvest what I can, though it may be that this year's crop won't be much because of the timing of the transplant. I'm hoping moving to more favourable conditions will help.
I've already got some bulbs (9) that should flower this year as well as her's and additionally another 60 turning up in December/ January, so I should get a sensible harvest once all are established.
I do use saffron a lot and on an almost daily basis, and have drying facilities. You also don't need to separate the stamen from the flowers either, at least not for saffron tea. You can infuse the entire flower including stamen and that's something I currently do. I rather partial the saffron & wild thyme tea.
And as per my friends advice, they have been planted where I can watch them on a daily basis because you have to pick the flowers each and every day.
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I would imagine that they were first harvested with the complete flower intact. I have purchased some (for a herbal infusion) in this for form previously and from my point of view, the whole flower including the "unnecessary" parts of the stamen will be my first step/harvest. I don't need to worry about "retail" or similar issues, nor about "fake" saffron. I'm also not particularly concerned about including parts of the stamen that are usual discarded in commercial saffron.
I'm guessing that I'm have well over 400 bulbs by the time the stuff I've got now plus the 60 I've already paid for are established.
Herbaceous
Über Member
A monarch butterfly visited my liatris yesterday! This plant was advertised to me as a monarch butterfly magnet when I bought it.
We’ve seen a lot more butterflies (all the usual varieties around here) this year than years past.
Herbaceous
Über Member
Upped the ante yesterday with double monarchs!
Rocklobster
Legendary Member
Spicy tomato ketchup. Tomatoes, jalapenos, chilis, onions and garlic are all from the back yard.
Thursday's 110F/43C temperature did some significant damage to my basil. The leaves got sunburned. They are part green, part light brown. I ate a leaf, and it tasted okay, for now, but they are not pretty. I don't have high hopes for them. I'll try to snap a picture later today.
CD
CD
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I have to grow all of my stuff under 95% shading material here because the UV levels even in winter are so high. On Friday the UV hit 12 (on a 0 to 15 scale). Plus I found I couldn't work in the veg plot without it.
We've noticed that everything does so much better with it.
Do you have anything you can use to provide shade?
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