Today, I’ve sown some of my dye plant seeds in small pots indoors. The night frost has almost gone, you see…
Last year, I had luck growing Japanese indigo and woad from seeds that I cultivated indoors before planting outside, so I’ll do the same again with Japanese indigo this year. I’m skipping woad because Japanese indigo has a much higher dye content. Also, I have some woad plants growing from last year, so they might flower and produce seeds.
I’m also sowing seeds of weld and madder, and that’s the first time I try those. Weld seeds look like poppy seeds, but the plant is related to cabbage and mustard. It is said to have exceptionally fragrant flowers the second year, so I hope it’ll survive that long!
Madder seeds are a bit special, angular and sticky
Now, all the seeds are in their little pots. Madder seeds just under the surface, weld and Japanese indigo seeds just on the surface.
[…] Last year, I found that I was too late in the season, and that was with germination beginning on April 16th. My notes are sporadic, but it seems they grew in the seed-starting pots for about a month, and in […]
Hi…just a quick comment on sowing in pots.
I’m located in southern Ontario Canada.
Last summer 2021 was very hot and mine were grown in full sunshine for half the day (facing eastward (morning sun etc)).
They were waters about every second day…deep root watered.
I might have left them too long to harvest.
I picked ed the dried leaves in the fall. Roots weren’t harvested (at that time I didn’t know to do this.) The dried leaves were turning blue at time of picking.
I haven’t done any dye experiments with this year.
I’m growing more again this year 2022…but I’m planning on picking them fresh ..roots and all.
What latitude were your plants grown in and what type of soil?
Thanks for any feed back I appreciate your blog.
Tara