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!