Indigo Series Part 1, Harvest Time!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ต.ค. 2024
- It's finally time to harvest my Japanese Indigo! This video is part one of my new indigo series and an integral part of my Tending a Handmade Life mission.
It seems like it took forever to finally take off, but the day is finally here to do my first cutting of the season. My little raised bed indigo patch is pretty small, but yielded a sizeable harvest. I started the Japanese indigo/persicaria tinctoria and indigofera suffruticosa in a seed tray back in late April. Our climate is much cooler than what I had been used to for the last couple of growing seasons in North Central Florida, so growth was much slower. The Japanese indigo has done quite well, but the second variety I'm growing, the more tropical indigofera suffruticosa, is taking much longer to get to harvesting size. Time will tell if/when it gets there.
In this video, I harvest the indigo and start soaking the leaves in water from my small creek. Adding to the adventure, this is the first time I'll be using something other than city/chlorinated water for the whole process. I'm using creek water for the soak and will be using our well water when I create my vats. I'm excited to see what sort of difference, if any, I notice in the qualities of the dye.
Videos to follow will be the aqueous extraction process, creating dye vats and the dyeing of assorted cloth ... linen to cotton to silk.
So that's it for now! Stay tuned for the next in the series, when the indigo magic really starts to happen!
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Music: End Of The Road (Instrumental) by Anthem of Rain
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
creativecommons...
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#japaneseindigo #naturaldyes #ruralliving
beautiful work!
Thank you!
Thank you from Belgium 🌺
You are ever so welcome!
Ive got two measley plants holding on for dear life, im putting in some tinctoria and suffruticosa. Hoping they will find it comfortable here in the desert with me babying them.
Apologies for just now seeing this! You’re measly few plants is more than what I currently have! I have a big fat zero and just direct sowed seeds for the third time. Our cool spring did all my starts in. I bet you’ll do well with suffruticosa. Japanese indigo likes it more moist. Good luck!
That's a very tidy shed. I was preparing for something worse. Lol.
Heh heh, we’re pretty much neat-niks!
Cool video, thanks for the info. Does it actually keep the bugs away? What about in it's plant form? Is it only insect repellent once dyed? Thanks again.
Sorry , no idea what you’re referring to … I’m growing indigo as a dye plant. Think blue jeans. Not a clue about how it affects bugs.
Does the clipped indigo regrow for another harvest?
Yes! Last year when this was filmed, I got a much earlier start and I think I got 3 harvests. Then I let it go to seed for the next year's crop. I've also heard that it can be cut way back and will over-winter in milder climates. I'm in the mountains of NC, so not terribly mild, but I'm going to try it this year.
@@tendingahandmadelife Think I will try to grow some indigo. Not sure what would grow best in zone 7. We get very hot and dry in OK.
@@mccarthyhome There are lots of different varieties of indigo. I grow Japanese indigo, persicaria tinctoria, a riparian variety that likes warm and wet conditions. You might do well with indigofera suffruticosa that can withstand hotter and more harsh conditions. There's a terrific FB group for all things about growing and processing indigo into dye, facebook.com/groups/indigopigmentextractionmethods /
@@tendingahandmadelife Thank you for this information I will definitely look into this facebook group and variety of Indigo. I was thinking that the variety you had success with wouldn’t work here. My garden has had a hard time this year.
Is similar with índigoferia suffruticosa?
Distant relations ... there are lots of indigo bearing varieties across the globe. Japanese indigo plants look very different from suffruticosa and indigofera tinctoria.