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DYERS Natural dyeing?

I think DH may have gone stark staring bonkers.

I have always known he has had a vague interest in natural dyes. And of course whenever he runs across something bad about synthetics he comes arunnng to me with it. The man is still trying to convince me to dye my hair with indigo because he doesn't trust the comercial hair dyes.

So I am finalizing the seed order for the garden this year and figuring out which bits can be crammed in where, and how much work certain things would be to either keep alive or keep reined in, and etc. Then he pops up with several suggestions all aimed towards dying, and giving me the whats, and wherefors on them. I got told about how to successfully extract and use bugloss, how we may be able to make woad and madder survive, what larkspur gives the best blue, and a compare and contrast of the uses of yellow dock and dyers broom. Also pointing out that if I took to using the yellow dock for something it would no doubt die out on me. And that was just the tip of it. He is actually talking about a semipermanent coldframe-greenhouse cross sort of thing _and_ a small contained boggy area just to get some of these plants to mature! I just sat there and gaped at him. Honestly I don't know what to think. He obviously has taken the notion to heart, but natural dying is a fair bit more work than the much simpler chemical dyes. I asked and it is in part a toxicity issue. It is not that natual dyes are less toxic, some of the mordants are quite heinous, and some of the materials themselves are poisonous, but the knowing what is toxic and why. It apparently bothers him not to know what I am paddling about in. He knows his weeds, and he is rather good at chemstry, but even the suggestion that I ask for MSDS on everything did not suit him. The other part seems to be the monetary saving in planting a dye rather than buying it. So long as I am already gardening it only makes sense to plant some dyes. I can see that. I am not sure how much saving there would be after getting the needed variety of mordants though.

I am considering planting a few of the less work intensive plants. Just a sampling to see how viable it would be to try. I have my current growing spaces planted or planned darn near by the inch, breaking lot more new ground in the increasingly smaller free space was not excactly what I had in mind this year.

Whatcha think?

NightMist

Reply to
NightMist
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might help or hinder you depending on where you want to go with this! good luck!

Reply to
Kellie J Berger

sounds like a gardening adventure - you might suggest that this summer you focus on one color and that he keeps a journal based on the experience. If keeping a journal is too much work for him, the problem is solved. If he dives in and loves the work, perhaps it can become something the 2 of you share? As to the lack of space. Do you container garden?

Musicmaker

Reply to
Musicmaker

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this company has lots of experience and information on natural dyeing.http://prairiefibers.com/Dyeing%20with%20Natural%20Dyes.html Looks like this is a good link on their pages.

Reply to
KJ

well, there are two sides to every coin.

the comoraderie with your husband in the garden.....with beautiful hand-dyed fabrics for a gorgeous quilt.

loads of work...bad back issues...delagating weeding time, etc.

i have an old book on the subject. it's very vague, but it also states to use chemical mordants. i dunno. could be fun.

amy in CNY

Reply to
amy in CNY

We have bloodroot, yellowdock, sumac, poke, and a host of other plants growing wild in abundance. I am not sure what some of them do on cloth, I would have to research. I have used a few of them to dye porky quills, but it has been a while since DH has issues with me dragging home road kill. Of course I did just recently stumble on to a place I can get quills by the half pound or pound at a decent price. Maybe it is a sign.

I do some container gardening. It is tricky because I haven't got a lot of good windows for it, and I do have 4 cats, and Ash. Though in season I can put a few containers out on the kitchen roof, and hang things out the upper windows. I do have the first landing of the stairs, which has a gigantic window facing east and another facing south. But it tends to bake in summer and freeze in winter.

DH bounces back and forth a lot about the gardening. He is constantly telling me I am mad for planting this or that, and then he winds up pleased with it, or in the case of my foray into food actually enthusiastic. He is now quite big on my small fruits and helps out with them. After seeing how much I got in how little space, he was thrilled with the shallots and my choices of bunching onions. He ended up delighted with how I managed asparagus. He was positive that my strawberries would run amok and take over until he understood my whole raised and terraced bed plan. Now he is actually discussing putting in a similar bed for tomatos with me. This year I am crazed for my plan to combine a tomato cage setup with european trellising techniques to grow a few melons and other useful vining plants. I expect If I get good results from it he will be enthusiastic about that as well. If I acually plant some of his suggestions, I might well get him out into the fresh air and helping me garden more than berry picking and pulling the odd weed out of the strawberry bed.

I had already planned herbs that are useful to him. Apparently he has been putting some thought and research to what ones might be useful to me. This year's wild hair was supposed to be vine peaches (still gonna plant them).

NightMist gonna put cornfield beans in behind the bush cherries to run up twine to the kitchen roof this year too.

Reply to
NightMist

Well, when DH gets critical of something you planted, you could always tell him what I tell my DH. Last summer I mentioned some ideas I had and he started in on all the cons (not so good at the pros, probably because he thinks that it's his job to keep me in reality) and I looked at him and said, "so is there something in our gardening history together that tells you that you have any say?". This is based on the fact that I mow, till, hoe, weed, plant, preserve, landscape etc by myself.

Musicmaker

Reply to
Musicmaker

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