An exciting day at Cross Road Gardens. It really felt like spring, for the first time, I think. A burst of gardening energy, although I only really worked for a few hours.
Spring day
Category: dye plants
Starts
I moved my seed starting schedule two weeks forward. I think I started too early last year.
So far, so good. My alliums have sprouted and some kale. Still waiting on celery leaf and indigo.
Center from top: kale and cutting celery, cabbage and Brussels sprouts, alliums.
Right: a pot of indigo.
Today I planted brassica seeds: broccoli blend, Speedia Brussels sprouts, and Mammoth red cabbage. All Fedco.
Dye garden
So much is happening in the garden. I can’t keep up. But I have to post about the dye garden. This is the first year I’ve tried to grow plants specifically for dyeing.
I planted this bed on June 14 from seedlings started on May 31. Much too late. Some plants caught up and are blooming, others are struggling. The tall plant and best performer so far is the garland serrated chrysanthemum. Second best is the dyer’s coreopsis. These seeds came from Grand Prismatic Seeds in Utah.
There are a lot of buds on the safflower. It’s an interesting plant, new to me.
I’m looking forward to growing much more of this cosmos. The flowers are stunning and the dyeing power is strong. I won’t be using it to dye until I get more than one flower!
This is my star, the serrated chrysanthemum. I heard about this plant from Suzanne Grosjean. I’ll grow this again.
I love the deep reds and yellows of these flowers. Will grow again. I’m not sure what’s happening with the chamomile. Its foliage is lush, but no flowers.
Seeming to know it belonged here! I was really gratified to see this volunteer St. John’s wort growing next to the dye bed. The flowers are so pretty. I haven’t dyed with it but I saw a video by India Flint showing her use of it in the being (t)here course. The video is called “local colour.”
Other plants in the dye bed that are languishing are black night scabiosa and black hollyhock. I’ll keep at it with these as I’d really like to grow them.
- Hopi black dye sunflower which is growing tall but not blooming yet
- Shades of Gold marigold – huge plants, very happy in the garden, but only a few flowers so far
I’m having trouble keeping up with the garden let alone dyeing, but I did manage to use some of the chrysanthemum and coreopsis recently. This silk broadcloth strip must have been mordanted with iron earlier (the importance of keeping records!), because the prints turned out very dark. These dark silhouettes have their own beauty though.
Dye garden
I’m planning a dye garden this year. The seeds are from Grand Prismatic Seed in Utah, except for the garland serrated chrysanthemum which are from Fedco.
These were planted in soil blocks in May 31. None of the Navajo Tea have sprouted yet. Only one cosmos, and only two hollyhocks.
I’m going to plant the marigolds in the main garden, and maybe the cosmos, for their gladdening effect (and pest deterrence). I wish I could get more marigolds and cosmos, maybe I will direct seed them in the herb garden. The four Hopi Black Dye sunflowers are going along the north border. The others are going into two rehabilitated raised beds that I dug free of quack grass and amended with leaf mulch.
For future reference, here’s a blog post from Grand Prismatic about dyeing with some of these plants: https://www.grandprismaticseed.com/blog/2019/5/1/shirt-of-many-colors.