These days I consider, "a gal you want on your team when the zombies show up" to be the highest of compliments. My friend Marissa Ames is exactly that. She has a small farm here in Fallon, every inch filled with bountiful veggie gardens, rare breed goats, beehives, and probably a lot of full canning jars. She is an expert on all things homestead and is the Senior Editor for Countryside Publications. She volunteers as the homesteading instructor for High Desert Grange and serves on the board for the Fallon Food Hub. She and her husband, Russ, travel frequently to Zambia to oversee sustainability projects. You can find her and lots of great garden advice on Facebook at Ames Family Farms. This week she tells us all about “Adventures in a Local Spice Garden.”
“You’re kidding. You don’t really grow saffron,” I often hear.
“That’s my saffron bed, right over there.”
“It can’t be real saffron,” they’ll reply.
Okay, I get it. Retailing at over $1,000 per pound, saffron obviously must be cultivated on the shores of the Black Sea, fertilized by unicorn manure, and watered by the tears of a virgin, right? But Fallon weather is similar to that of Iran, where most of the world’s saffron grows. And our winters? Not a problem.
“Can you get rich growing saffron here?” would be the very next question.
Not so fast. Saffron must be hand-picked and hand-processed and wages in Iran vastly differ from wages here. But a 4’x 4’ bed is big enough for a family’s meals. And if you have a love affair with Mediterranean food, as I do, I recommend closer to 8’x 8’.
Saffron sits dormant through the hot summer and blooms in October, just when a killing frost takes most other flowers. Harvesting is easy, walk outside as the blossoms open in the morning sun. Pluck the whole blossom, if you wish, or just those three valuable red threads so you can leave the rest for the bees. After the season ends, dry on low heat then store in an airtight jar.
I like to collect my saffron threads in a coffee filter, with another filter placed on top to avoid dust. After the season ends, I staple the filter into a little packet then heat-treat in my dehydrator for a few hours. I open the packet, dump the dried threads into an airtight container, and store for a few months so they can build potency before using them.
It sure beats paying $10 for an expired single-recipe portion at the store.
I’ve grown my own spices for years. This year, I added paprika.
“Wait…you can grow paprika?”
It’s just a red pepper, dried and ground. Bell and Marconi peppers work for a sweet paprika, or you can plant actual paprika peppers. Alma and Leutschauer varieties make a hot paprika while Waltz and Papri Plus offer almost no heat. For a tasty smoked paprika, smoke the peppers on low heat for a few hours, then dry in a dehydrator and run through a blender. Unsmoked paprika can dry on the plant itself or strung up and hung in a garage — with a cloth over it to keep the dust off.
The idea of growing your own spices isn’t groundbreaking. Prominent gardeners and farmers have been cultivating local spices for years. When I first tried saffron, I followed advice from UNR Master Gardener Carol Ort. Custom Gardens in Silver Springs grows baby ginger and used to market fresh turmeric to Whole Foods. Lattin Farms offers spring and summer garlic. And I challenge everyone to try the peppers offered at Two Ravens Farm. Truly there’s a recipe for every pepper variety.
Have you tried making garlic salt? Grind fresh garlic cloves and mix with an equal volume of salt, then dehydrate. Don’t worry if the salt dissolves because it crystallizes again when dried. For specialty garlic salt that you won’t find at stores, roast the garlic first. Or use Himalayan pink salt or Hawaiian black salt. Add lime juice for a nice fajita salt. Grow Eastern European garlics that offer better flavor than the Chinese or Music varieties sold at stores. Russian Red has a warm flavor that reminds me of copper, or Georgian Fire is so much heat that it hurts to eat it raw.
Or, for a crazy treat -- heat a pint of Sand Hill Dairy heavy cream to just below simmering, then add saffron or roasted garlic. Let it infuse for about an hour then strain and chill. Whip it in a stand mixer until it turns to butter. Saffron butter makes amazing croissants.
Until I have that half-acre, heated, all-season greenhouse of my dreams, I can’t grow all my spices. I still need to buy vanilla beans to make vanilla extract, buy cacao beans to make cocoa butter and chocolate and hope the international market prices stay low enough. Perennial peppercorn plants die in a frost. Cinnamon and nutmeg require warmer temperatures than ours and do better in Zone 10.
But considering what I can grow in Fallon, and how a few extra steps make an exquisite value-added product, my spice gardens have become my most popular.
Are we living the high life? Maybe not but spicing up the high-desert life is just as good.
Jaime Sammons carries a pair of pruners in her glove box -- just in case, and believes you can be a gardener even if you only grow flowers on your front porch.
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