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Rooted in Vermont soil since 1893.

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Greenhouse

Why You Should Grow Saffron

by Horsford Team

First off, who doesn’t love a fall-flowering plant? Saffron’s beauty and landscape opportunity should sell itself, but there are far more reasons why saffron should end up in your garden and on your dinner plate.

Culinary Use

Saffron stigmas are the sticky orange-red threads pictured above. They are used globally for culinary cuisines. Saffron contains carotenoids which are powerful antioxidants and nutritionally, saffron is very high in iron, manganese, copper, potassium, calcium, selenium, zinc, and magnesium. It also contains high mineral sources, such as vitamin A, folic acid, riboflavin, niacin, and vitamin-C.

Saffon in Your Garden

Saffron can grow in a variety of conditions but would do best in a garden bed. This crocus variety is a corm and should be grown like any other bulb such as tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths. They are a hot and dry loving plant and growing saffron can be an easy addition for any gardener, and offers not only landscape beauty but a healthy investment with a delicious return.

Harvested saffron flowers

Zone Hardiness

Saffron is hardy to zone 4, and has potential in some zone 3 areas.

Corm Information

Each year more saffron corms will multiple from the original corm, producing more flowers each year. After 4-5 years of harvesting, the corms should be relocated, or soils should be amended to replenish fertility. Your saffron corms are rated at 10+/centimeter grade, which is considered flower production size.

Soil Conditions

Saffron can tolerate a variety of soil pH (6-8), and prefer a dry, well-drained, full sun location. Saffron seems to enjoy fertilizer so don’t forget to add some compost to your planting to help improve daughter corm and flower development.

Planting Instructions

Plant your saffron corms as soon as you receive them in late summer/early fall. Plant 4-6 inches deep, and 4-6 inches apart. Mulch and plant corms deep enough into the soil to prevent frost exposure. Thoroughly water in your corms, and wait until you see growth above ground before you start watering them regularly. They should be watered during extreme drought or prolonged dry periods. They will flower first, during late October/early November, and remain vegetative through the entire winter. They will keep their foliage until July, when they will dry back and remain dormant until the fall. During dormancy they should not be watered. Natural rain or snow events shouldn’t be a problem.

Harvest Instructions

Saffron stigmas should be collected once the flower reaches full maturity, then dried and cured for the best culinary appeal and health benefits. Drying should take place for several days in a cool, wind-free area, and jarred, and cured over the course of a few weeks.

Warning: Rodents

Because this plant grows when no other plants are growing, it is a very welcoming food source for moles and voles during March and April especially. Please be cautious of rabbits and rodents when siting your plants. If planting in raised beds, install hardware cloth to help ensure your saffron remains yours and not your garden pests’.

Saffron corms

Supplies are limited, so if you plan to plant some saffron in your landscape, please pre-order online soon!

-Saffron Production Team aka Steve

Filed Under: Edibles, Gardening, Greenhouse

Saffron in October

by Horsford Team

horsford-saffron-foliage

For those of you who joined us in growing saffron this year, you should be seeing some movement in your corms above ground, and in some cases flowers beginning to bloom! This is a very exciting time considering all of our landscape has started to transition into winter.

Saffron can handle frost, and will persist even as snow begins to cover the ground. As the flowers begin to bloom, you should start to harvest them. Pluck the saffron stigmas, and if you’re interested, the stamens as well, and leave them out in an area to dry for 48 hours. This should be a place with little breeze as these stigmas are easily blown around. Once the stigmas are dry, store your saffron in an air tight container and begin using in in your future saffron recipes. The stamens can be used as dye, and have traditionally been the source of the color yellow in Nepalese cultures.

To harvest your flowers, pick the flower below its purple petals every two days, and place in a container to bring to an area where you can process the flower. Pulling back the petals to reveal the stigmas and stamens, use whatever tool you find comfortable to separate with. You should see 3-5 flowers per corm planted, so if you only pick one, don’t worry there’s more to come.

After the flower has been harvested the corm will remain vegetative and continue to develop daughter corms well into winter. Eventually the corm’s filaments will die back and the corm will go dormant until the following fall.

Our corms are 100% above ground here at Horsford’s and have begun to show flower development! Have fun and please share your saffron gardens and dishes with us, as we close out the harvest season!

-Saffron Production Team aka Steve

Filed Under: Edibles, Gardening, Greenhouse

Bug Eat Bug World in Horsford’s Greenhouses

by Horsford Team

The mighty lady beetle in full force in Horsford’s greenhouses

Today’s garden pests are beefed up, hungry to consume, and resistant to most traditional methods of control in your garden and on house plants. There seems to be continuous production of state-of-the-art chemicals that only serve as the next temporary band aid on pest management. If you observe our native landscapes you don’t usually see large populations of pests, or even any single species populations. Pests are diverse, spread out, and quick to move, as there are the same number of natural predators lurking between the leaves and consuming these pests as fast as they can produce.

At the nursery, we embrace a garden’s natural cycles and incorporate beneficial insects to help control our pests as we encounter them during the growing season in our greenhouses. We aren’t able to completely eradicate all pests but we can manage their populations and remove them from our plants more effectively. Eliminating pesticide use in our greenhouse is the most important aspect of our entire program. Now our greenhouse gravel floors and surrounding gardens are nurturing generations of natural predators to help not only our greenhouse annuals, but all the plants we grow at the nursery.

Horsford greenhouse-vegetables
Horsford’s annuals, herbs and vegetables are pesticide-free

The mites, wasps, and army of bugs in this bug eat bug world

Western Flower Thrip damage on verbena
Western Flower Thrip damage on verbena

The most destructive pest we encounter is not usually one people think of, or even can see. Its tiny golden weevil body is about the size of a few grains of salt. It quickly finds fresh pollen, lush green growth, and flower petals and sucks life from a plant. The Western Flower Thrip has become increasingly resistant to pesticides, and quickly develops a home in greenhouse production. They have been known to bite growers depending on populations!

With a simple application of multiple species, predatory mites can completely control a thrip population. These mites will breed in the soil, disperse themselves throughout the application area, and seek and destroy the thrips. Predatory mites are now considered by the greenhouse industry to be the most effective way to control thrips.

Green peach aphid and young
Green peach aphid and young

Green Peach Aphids consistently meet and greet every season in our greenhouse. We use two different predators for control. Parasitic wasps are a longer, slower control but have proven to be very effective against aphid populations. These wasps lay their eggs into the aphid, and as the larvae develop they consume and hatch out of the aphid’s body (gross). Here are some from our greenhouse.

These beneficial bugs are part of the #horsfordteam! Thanks @ullrrise , our Greenhouse Manager, for catching them on camera! ・・・ Instead of covering our greenhouse plants in chemicals we enlist the biological forces to control our problems. Don’t be fooled by box store annuals, we got the real deal @horsfordnursery. More bees, more bugs, more life. #saynotopesticides #greenhouses #parasiticwasps #aphiddestroyer

A post shared by Horsford Gardens & Nursery (@horsfordnursery) on Apr 22, 2017 at 11:24am PDT

To help keep our wasp populations thriving we also grow Bird Cherry Oat aphids that specifically only eat oat grass. These aphids don’t bother our plants in the greenhouse, and serve as a banquet for our wasps.  Look for these “banker plants” in baskets hanging at the end of each greenhouse. These keep the wasps roaming for the aphids that do harm to our plants. Once a population of Green Peach Aphids appears, the wasps are attracted to them and help manage the pest.

Ladybeetles in Horsford greenhouse
Lady beetles in Horsford’s greenhouses

Our second predator is the mighty lady beetle, who although have a long development phase from egg to beetle, have proven to be useful and effective in controlling aphid population outbreaks.

Next time you’re at the nursery be sure to stop in our greenhouses and take a closer look at our plants. You’ll be amazed at the ecosystems within the beautiful flowers, aromatic cooking herbs, and lush vegetable starts.

Horsford greenhouse-petunias
See you soon in the greenhouses

Filed Under: Gardening, Greenhouse, Wildlife

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2111 Greenbush Road | Charlotte, Vermont 05445
(802) 425-2811 | info@horsfordnursery.com
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