New Experiment

Today, I was greeted by a lot more blooms.

 

Because the direct dye experiment was so successful, I decided to use that method to try and make indigo extract.  I used the direct dye method up to a certain point.   Let me explain.

I cut 8 ounces of leaves.

Put the leaves in the jar and covered with water then put the jar in a water bath, just like before.

I kept very detailed records of this, but I won't bore you with all of that. 

Basically I heated them, strained the liquid from the leaves and put the liquid back in the jar and aerated it with the immersion blender.  I didn't take pictures of that, it was just like before.

At the point where I would add ammonia and Spectralite to reduce it, instead, I added a little lime and continued with the aeration until it looked like this.

I've covered the jar and will let it sit overnight, hoping the indigo will precipitate out and fall to the bottom of the jar.  In the morning I will either have a wonderful "mud" of dark blue indigo pigment at the the bottom of the jar or it will be a big bust!

If it's a big bust, then back to the drawing board.  If it's successful then I'll do another batch with a larger quantity of leaves.  Say a prayer and keep your fingers crossed that I have  blue "mud".  

A big thank you to Casey Price for her invaluable help and moral support today!

                                                               

Beauty Shots

Indigo blooms are not particularly showy but they are a lovely salmon color.

If you look closely at the bottom of this bloom you'll see the tiny seed pods starting to form.

They are small but lovely!

This particular plant is approximately 10 ft. tall! 

This one is around 9 ft. tall.  Look at all those little blooms starting to grow!  We're going to have a good supply of seeds
for next year and that's a very good thing!

Harvest Time

This morning I was greeted by hundreds and hundreds of little blooms on the indigo plants.

Next week will be the time to start picking the lower leaves and processing them into indigo extract.  I'm only going pick the lower leaves and leave the branches with the blooms so I will have seeds for next year.

The next post will be pictures of the finished extract!  I can't wait!!

Carolina Blue

Today I decided it was time to test the indigo and see how much indican is in the leaves.  A friend, Lynn Pollard helped me, thanks, Lynn!  We used the direct dye instructions in Rita Buchanan's book, A Dyer's Garden.

The plant we cut was one that had small buds on it.  We ended up with approximately 5.5 ounces of leaves.  The directions called for 8 ounces.

The leaves were put in a gallon jar and covered with warm water then placed in a water bath to heat to 160 degrees over a 2 hour period.

After a while, the water in the jar started turning an amber color.  That's a good thing!

The water in the jar started showing signs of blue.  A very good thing!!
















Toward the end of the 2 hours, the water was a dark amber tea color.

At that point it was time to strain the leaves.

After adding the liquid back to the jar, I used an immersion blender to aerate the liquid, it didn't take long for it to turn a very dark blue with those lovely blue bubbles on top.

After adding ammonia and Spectralite, it sat for another hour in order for it to reduce.

At the end of the hour it was a dark yellow/green.  At that point 2 ounces of scoured yarn was added and let sit for 15 minutes.  This is what happened!

 

A beautiful, intense blue!

I started adding small skeins of yarn, one at a time, each one sitting for 15 minutes until all the indigo was used up. 

Carolina Blue!!

Catching Up!

Today I found the first bloom on an indigo plant!  It won't be long before we start harvesting and processing it into extract.

 

 A couple of weeks ago I was given a wonderful gift of some Indigofera suffruticosa pods.  As  you can see from the photo below, the seeds, which are the little black dots on the left side, are quite small.   It took me a while to extract the seeds from the pods.  While working on the pods at night I was clearing and preparing more land on which to plant them during the day.  Luckily I had help from some of the farm interns.  Thank you interns!

You can tell they are Indigofera suffruticosa because they have curved pods.   Indigofera tinctoria  has straight pods.

These seeds are quite robust as they came up after only a week in the ground.  If we have a long warm Fall we should be harvesting and processing until the first frost.

Once the indigo comes up, they grow very fast.  Some of the plants are now over my head.

I've also been introducing some of the interns to dyeing with indigo.  We've been having such fun!

Just a couple of the many things we dyed that day drying on the brush fence.

Emma wants to be a part of everything we do.  I'm surprised she doesn't have blue spots on her muzzle!

One more picture of the indigo.

Indigo fermentation vat with a little help from my friends

Today I decided to start an indigo fermentation vat at the farm.  I had four helpers, Casey the farm owner and three sisters who are learning about goat keeping and now want to learn about natural dyes.

Let  me introduce you to Elizabeth, Lauren and Danielle.  Elizabeth and Lauren are "animal people" and Danielle is a "plant person".  All three are learning to milk goats.  In the picture they are holding the ground madder root, wheat bran, washing soda which is in the vat and indigo extract in the basket.

Casey adding hot water to the washing soda to dissolve it.

The girls carrying the vat to the green house where we will keep it until after the tropical storm passes.
I love this picture!  That's Emma following behind.

Adding the wheat bran and the ground madder root.
 

Having no experience with natural dyes, they were amazed at the intensity of red from the madder root.  Beautiful!

We moved the vat into the green house for the  time being.  Here we're adding the indigo.  If you look out the window of the green house you can see the indigo growing.

Now it's all ready to start the fermentation process.  By the weekend it should be very warm outside (in the mid 90's) and I'll then move it out of the green house.  With temperatures that high it shouldn't take too long to ferment!

I just like this picture, indigo vat in the front and growing indigo out the window!

(I did put the lid on it, don't worry!)

Next week the girls are going to learn how to scour and mordant yarn.  Then we'll dye it!

Rain, rain, rain!

Yesterday, the indigo got around 2.5 inches of rain.   Woohoo!  Today it was perfect indigo growing weather: low 80's, sunny, and the humidity was somewhere around 75-100% (yes, it was that high).  The humidity was hard on me, but the indigo loved it.  I've been drinking water all day and still can't get enough.  But the indigo is growing and new ones are springing up every day!

Just waiting......

The indigo plants are starting to grow, but I'm having to water them just about every day.  The soil is very sandy and well drained so my mornings are pretty much watering, weeding and talking to the indigo.  I've also planted around 30 various heirloom tomato plants, an assortment of peppers and eggplants, marigolds between the tomatoes, red amaranth (a gift from a friend), cosmos seeds and mammoth sunflower seeds.  The dyer's coreopsis seed came today and I'm hoping the Hopi black sunflower seed come by the end of the week.  Everything is mulched with goat compost and now I'm adding wood chips on top of the compost trying to keep the soil moist and cool.  Who needs a gym!

I thought I would share some more pictures from the farm.  

 These are the little indigo plants.  Soon they will be approximately 10 feet tall!

The bees!  Humm....I wonder how indigo honey would taste?

How many of you have ever seen an olive blossom?  I haven't, they are very small and interesting.  Historically, olives were one of the plants the the colonists were encouraged to grow and there were several olive groves in the Lowcountry  but they were destroyed by hurricanes.  We now have active olive groves again!  Check out the Georgia Olive Oil web site.

And finally, let me introduce you to Beauregard.  He is a bottle fed baby and is quite a character, wanting to suck on your fingers and follow you around.   Beau will be the new herd sire as he's not genetically related to any of the females.

Soon I will be posting more on Eliza and her family, as well as some of the other interesting historical people that were involved in the indigo industry in the Lowcountry.

Yay! We have sun!!

It's a beautiful day in the Lowcountry, the sun is shining, there are fluffy white clouds drifting by and it's about 75 degrees.   Here are some pictures of my little indigo patch, I've finished putting goat compost between the rows and the seeds are all nice and tucked in. 

And, here are little indigo babies!

I also thought I'd introduce you to some of my support staff.  These are the silly guineas.  Their job is to eat bugs and the old wives tale is that they keep snakes away.  We can only hope!

The most important support staff are the goats!  Their job is to make fertilizer and compost and of course milk.  It is just so much fun to watch them, especially the babies!  They have very distinct personalities and are very curious.

This little girl was climbing all over her mom and standing on her back.

I thought I'd end with this little girl who is only a week old.  Very sweet!