There are several other crocuses which have the red stigmas: C. cartwrightianus, C. pulchellus, C. chrysanthus (orange-red), C. corsicus and others. The picture above shows a very typical saffron flower, with the thin, dark purple veins. While there is an “alba”, all white form with red stigmas, it’s not as common.
If one has a lot of saffron to harvest, the method is to pick off the whole flowers and pull out the stigmas later. Otherwise, you’re constantly rechecking flowers, on the plants, which had already been harvested. When I had 200 saffron crocus, that issue came up pretty quickly!
I leave all things gardening to Mr Bean so it will be up to him to figure out what’s he’s growing. Fortunately we don’t have more than 10 plants so keeping track of what’s been picked has never been a problem.
Saffron does need a cold winter, as part of its seasonal cycle. This can be supplied after flowering. Unlike some bulbs, saffron has leaves during the cold fall-winter months, so requires sunlight. It vanishes during the hot months.
The one spud in the bag looks pretty darn healthy. So do several other plants, especially the cilantro. It’s supposed to freeze tonight, so I’ll wait until that’s over to put in some beets, cilantro, radishes, sugar snap peas, and see if any of it comes up. my back yard is enshrouded in frostcloth, blankets, and kimguards that I got from work, they’re used to wrap sterile instruments and are really heavy, but they don’t transmit ight worth a darn.
