such great info.. I learned so much.. thanks!!!

Tee, I had such a great time reading this article. It sure brought back many memories. We actually got to experience living off the land in the 60's and 70's on our little homestead farm.
Our favorite guides books were the set of Firefox books given to us by my sister-in-law, and I couldn't imagine being without the writtings of Euell Gibbons.

Yes, growing, harvesting and processing your own spices, herbs and vegetables is the best.

Thanks, Allison and Lynn. This brought back a lot of fond memories.

Nice to live off the land, Lynn. CA in the 60's and 70's ... a wild and wooly place for sure ... some good, some not so good. But it was like a huge experimental learning environment. Some things you just never forget.

Oh, what a wonderful article Tee and I'm definitely going to try some of these spices.

Same here on the saffron, I've never bought any but I'm sure going to try and harvest my own.

I can't thank you enough for all this information!

You're welcome, Vic. Where will you get your bulbs? I'm going to plant some out and also plant a very large pot of them as well, I think.
Groovy!

Groovy indeed! Where's that peace sign???

Not sure where I'll get the bulbs, we have the spring crocus here but not the autumn blooming I first learned about them on Food Network - who of course has a huge budget for their dishes

I planted them 3 or 4 times already.. only to die or be eaten try and try again though.. love saffron rice

Rabbits?

Lily my yorkie got a vole last year... guess I have those.. and we are over run with chipmunks .. might have to do the cage thing .. did that years ago with my tulips

Voles. They can be such a pain. I was just looking at the planting baskets at WM yesterday. Not too expensive.

Vic ...

the one for my tulips was real nice.. of course we didn't plant good tulips that come back every year.. didn't know when I did that but the cage looks like a small chicken wire.. and the sides stuck out.. so if a critter came near it would get poked .. covered on all sides ... they just grow right through them

I had no idea we had voles here until Lily got that one... she plucks off chipmunks now and then.. not that I am happy about it.. but she is a yorkie that thinks she is a cat.. will sit perfectly still until the dope gets close enough.. sometimes for hours.. ears vibrating and all .. she smells there tunnels behind our retaining wall and will follow them behind it.. every now and then I hear a "pphhh pppphhh ppphh" while weeding above... she presses her nose in the cracks and tries to smell if there are any there

The WM cages weren't that nice ... plastic. I can't imagine those lasting more than one season. Best to invest in the kind you describe or make some durable ones.

My daughter used old milk crates. Those never die and nothing touched her lilies.

thaks so much for the article. I never thought about trying to grow some of those spices. Not sure I can up here but will sure try.

A great read, Tee. Very informative and holds a persons attention.

I bet we all dust off our dehydrators now and prepare for the makings as the crops come in this year!

By the way, I hear "Turface" is a great deterrent to voles. It's basically hardpressed/dried clay-type crumbles used to break up soil to give it better tilth. However, when used in the planting hole with bulbs it's believe it is too hard on the tiny little noses of those voles and they won't dig thru it to get to the bulbs. Never tried it myself but perhaps someone who has will come forth with their experience.

Again, thanks for the article/tips.
Shoe

Thanks, Mary Stella. If you give any of them a try, let is know what happens.

Thanks as well, Shoe. Now that I'm over 40 (Ahem ... ) it's interesting to look back at some things and see just how the perspective may have changed over the course of time.

I lost my dehydrator somewhere in a move but have one of those small convection ovens that works well to dry things fairly quickly. In my fanatical "purist" days I always spread everything out in the sun to dry. Now in breezy/windy TN I do believe it would all blow away about half the time ... and the other half there would be three cats walking in it.

The times, they are a changin'.

Hmmm, Turface. I'll have to try that Shoe. Thank you.

Great article!

I've been growing saffron for a couple years now. I can try to dig up the website where I got my corms, but I just used Google to find a place with decent prices.

I have some plants in the ground and others in a container (about five gallons, and I think I started with 12 plants in it). The ones in the container have actually grown and divided much better than the ones in the ground for me, but neither produces as much saffron as I thought they would - I get about a teaspoon a year now total. I may have not found the perfect growing conditions for them yet, so I'm hopeful about improving yields.

I don't deal with voles, but squirrels love to dig up tasty morsels in my yard. When I planted the saffron, I put a piece of hardware cloth (1/2"x1/2" mesh) over the area with a couple bricks to keep it in place, then mulched over it all. The saffron leaves are narrow enough to pass right through the holes, but it keeps anything from digging in.

Good to hear about your experience with saffron. I'm certainly looking forward to trying it. Also good to hear how you dealt with your voles. Thanks for commenting, bit.