Let the mixing begin. I only wore my mask till all the powders were wetted out and not floating in the air. Now watching the heat. A watched vat does not get hot fast. Thanks to everyone that mixed before me in the February class by Elisabeth so I could ponder the process. Here is a link to her classes.
Ferrous sulfate and calcium hydroxide measured out. Got an idea of dry volume and water needed to dissolve.
Pasted indigo gets one more stir to suspend pigment in the water. I left it overnight to let lumps soften & settle.
Vessels have heated water and ingredients added to dissolve
Mental note, this vat has an indent on the bottom I need to stir into and around. Wish I had measured the width before I started dumping ingredients into the vat. There is always an “if only”.
And splat! I wish I could set up neat & tidy but I always find a way to drip with large vats.
Pasting the leftover lumps. This is washed & dried pigment from my large Fructose vat. I wash my old fructose paste with 9% vinegar to remove the calcium carbonate and drain thru filters. Solely for the purpose of removing sludge volume and storage. We will find out how the pigment works after washing on a large scale.
My plan is to find out if same process works for “iron sludge”. I do NOT know if this process works for iron vat sludge or the chemical impact, yet. I need to create some iron sludge. Hence this vat is starting up. The Sapa indigo dyers use their pigment season to season in a wood ash vat. I decided to try using vinegar to reduce the calcium in a sludge reduction effort and clean up for use.
Old lady way of moving water from point A to point B
Nice & soupy, time to stir.
Stirring & stirring
Now I heat & wait for reduction. My sticks that support my heater are sitting on the handle indents within the bucket. No holes were made. I suppose holes would be safer. To me, if the sticks were left in place in the holes not much heat would escape. More importantly, I would be concerned with disturbing the structural integrity of the bucket sides by putting holes into the plastic. I am leaning towards putting holes or screw eyes in sticks and hold sticks by tying the handle. Right now I am still developing a relationship with my vat configuration. I’ll improve later.
Monday was all about moving water, pasting indigo and prepping other ingredients. For me it is getting an idea of how many prep vessels one needs to dissolve everything properly. Earlier this month I tested temperatures on my outside dye patio in my new 100 liter vat with and without heat. I captured the temperature range info for future reference.
The vat is shaded from sun so I wanted to get an idea of the temperature range here in very early spring in the Texas Hill country. I measured the initial 100 liters to measure and see water depth for the proper water volume. Plus to see if I had any vessel leaks. Now time to move water and prep the ingredients to mix.
A ruler to record depth of 100 liter of water
Now time to move water and prep the ingredients to mix. My husband and a good friend decided I needed a hoist to lift heavy loads a couple of years back. I thank them mentally every time I use it to avoid stressing old back & arm surgeries. This time I combined using the hoist with my sump pump and quickly moved water out of the vat into various containers to start dissolving ingredients.
A sump pump makes easy work of moving water
Next I pasted my indigo, a technique taught by Aboubakar Fofar at a master’s class at Botanical Colors. Think pudding consistency, you paste your indigo to the consistency of pudding, smoothly suspending your pigment in water. I had been working on breaking down washed pigment to powder from my large fructose vat. This pigment has hardened over the winter after vinegar washing to remove excess calcium carbonate. I had to spend some quality time with my mortar and pestle grinding the indigo to powder.
Testing vinegar washed pigment from last year’s vat
Setting that paste aside I measured out my ferrous sulfate (iron) to see the quantity involved for start up and measured out additional iron for sharpening the vat further down the timeline. I usually don’t use iron in such a large amount so had no sense of the volume. It will be interesting to see how it dissolves.
My calcium hydroxide is in the tidy package of Ms Wages pickling lime and doesn’t need additional processing.
So bearing in mind I am working with a target volume of 100 liters I have my water set aside, the ingredients measured out and am ready to put it all together.
It always starts out wet in the spring, so you have little warning that a drought is in the works. We had a wet and cool spring. As I waited for the ground and weather to warm up I decided to compare four different indigoferas.
Two were collected from wild areas with no clear identification or knowledge how they came to be in the area. I call them Junction and Bastrop. Both are found in river flood areas in the general area of these cities in Central Texas.
The Junction seed was gifted to me but was older seed, one season past when I would normally plant a seed. Foragers had collected the leaves for paint making and were generous in sharing seed and showing me their gathering buckets. I noted that these plants had very delicate stems and smaller leaves than the South Carolina sourced Indigofera Suffruticosa that I normally grow. The seed itself looks very much like tinctoria, the long string bean type of the Indigofera Tinctoria that is grown in many geographic areas.
The Bastrop seed had definite curved short pods which I collected from plants so I knew I had the optimal planting timing. This species as well had very delicate stems and small leaves compared to the IS that I grow. I did manage to collect a substantial amount of plant and seeds. The plant gave up the pigment easily. The seeds were very easy to germinate and I’ve set aside a portion for a second year try once I see how they fare this year.
The third seed was a Indigofera lindheimeriana I purchased from Native American Seed. I can find little practical information about it as indigo producing. It also came as seed so I had no clue what the seed pod looked like. I will grow it to see how the seed pod looks. In the literature it is presented more as a landscaping plant. It will be a good control plant to grow alongside the two wild indigos. Perhaps it will resemble one of them and confirm if they were a native species to the Hill Country Edwards Plateau. And at the end of season I could always ferment it to see if it holds the blue or indeed is just a pretty landscape plant.
And as usually I germinated my seeds from my South Carolina Indigofera Suffruticosa for replacement plants of the cruel freeze we had in Jan/Feb 2023. Below are my seedlings as of May 18th and their germination notes.
I typically cover my plants and use heat lamps but we were out of town when an unforecasted deep freeze hit and took out about half my seed plants. Yes, I know, cover the plants before you leave town. But I can assure you 20 degrees and ice was NOT in the 10 day forecast. I probably will add hoops to support frost free cloth this year to avoid this type of travel mishap.
I put off planting my seedlings as tiny crickets love baby indigofera plants when it is cool and wet. I used that time to clear the dead IS , dig & fertilize the beds for plant prep and prepare the irrigation and armadillo fencing. Racoons and armadillos love seedling plantings. They dig up the seedling to look for grubs. I always dig a decoy hole away from my plants and water it generously to attract the diggers. So far it has worked plus a small fence around my plant area. My seedlings were all ready to roll in mid-May but it was still coolish and buggy outside. So I held them inside a screen area to protect them from spring rains and hail and rotated them to keep them from getting leggy.
About mid-June we took a massive temperature jump from 80’s to 106. Yikes, summer is here very early. Not ideal weather for seedlings. I put the plants in carefully around the drip irrigation and for the first time ever put up some shade cloth so the new plants could get acclimated to the heat. That shade cloth has stayed up in June, July and part of August. I decided they need to sink or swim in the heat and as temperatures “lowered” to the mid 90’s. I need to see their adaptability to our Hill Country climate so I pulled the shade cloth in late August when temperatures “lowered” to 100 degrees, a “normal” temperature for that time of year.
One & two year old indigofera suffruticosa and lindheimer senna (guardian plant) to the left along the wall.Marking the all important dripEast facing bed sunshadeWest facing bed sunshade
The plants have lived but all 4 species were very reluctant to grow. They stabilized, took hold of the dirt and filled out but height was not an option during our 100 degree plus days which went 45 days in a row. Usually by August I have happy 5-6 foot Indigofera Suffriticosa plants and have harvested pigment at least one or two times. Not this year, we are in survival mode for seeds and pigment is looking doubtful at this time. Unless more leaves make an appearance in late September.
As of August the Junction seeds are showing their seed age and were very scraggly. The Lindeheimer has daintily filled out and has a beautiful shade of green. The Bastrop took the heat in stride and along with my SC Indigoferat Suffruticosa filled out and looked “comfortable”.
Choosing the working drips for the seedlingsLindheimer to the right, Senna and IS to the left
None developed height until the temps dropped to the mid-90’s in very late August and early September. My two year old Indigofera Suffruticosa got a better grow attitude and are now at 3-4 feet. The Bastrop is a bushy 18″ and happy. The Lindheimer is still dainty at less than 1 foot but is still leafing well. The Junction seed is flagging, drooping, not filling out and is just not happy. I think Junction is deciding to leave the building unless we get more cloud cover, which with this drought, does not appear to be in the books soon. Looking at the leaves the SC IS and the Bastrop leaves are very similar. The Lindhiemer and Junction have small and daintier foliage. All plants are more columnar shaped and have few branches and leaves compared to a normal “wetter” summer.
South Carolina Indigofera Suffruticosa looking happy but missing two feet in heightBastrop in 2nd place for happy, Junction to the right is strugglingTo the left the IS is happy, the Lindheimer stays dainty and 6″ tall
I will clip some stems and do a visual comparison for you on my next blog entry. But I’ll leave you with this comparison of two of the plants.
Note, SORRY guys, I accidentally deleted my blog post, my bad, let’s try this again.The 2020 season was time for experimenting with wet extraction of my Indigofera Suffruticosa and my Japanese Indigo. Prior years, due to our Texas heat and extreme weather, it was easier to pick the leaves and dry them for storage while I became acquainted with growing the plant itself in the Texas Hill country. You gotta keep the plant alive to reach the indigo cycle.
Let me just say for the record that I am extremely glad that Stony Creek Colors and Botanical Colors are vendors for indigo pigment. I enjoy growing the indigo varieties, but for my 110 gallon indigo vat I will never grow enough indigo to fill that vat adequately to obtain dark color for my paste resist work. However, I do small batches with my home grown indigo when I do stitch shibori or just need to overdye yarn skeins for weaving. Both methods, buying or growing are viable depending on your vat size or intent.
Below is my indigo pigment chart provided by Stony Creek Colors after analyzing my home grown pigment content, comparing vinegar wash versus no wash, and a comparison of Japanese Indigo versus Indigofera Suffruticosa. I submitted a total of 13 one gram samples over the season to test for pigment content. In other words, I process 13 batches over the growing season, kept notes on leaf weight, washing and kept them separate for testing.
Each test batch of dried pigment was 1 gram more or less. Summer Arrowood, Senior Research Chemist, was most patient in explaining their testing process. I had a question on the above chart on the last 2 columns on the right of the chart I received with my above testing. This is what I asked. “What is difference on your table between Indigo Content of Solids vs Overall % indigo of sample. Are you spinning out moisture from my sample or drying it further? Is the Overall % more indicative of indigo contained? I am having trouble differentiating between the phrases since they are referring to the same sample.”
Response from Summer Arrowood, Senior Research Chemist, “Your samples were quite moist, as much as 43% water in the case of #12. In order for our analysis to work the samples must be very dry. I dried the entire sample on a moisture balance and then took the dry material and analyzed it for indigo content. The ‘Indigo content of solids’ refers to this analysis. To get the ‘overall % indigo’, I used the moisture content and the indigo purity to calculate the % indigo of the sample as you sent it, including the water mass.”
My big surprise was the LATER in the season that I harvested my Indigofera Suffruticosa the HIGHER my indigo content went. I expected the indigo content to be much higher in July and August with the sun intensity, instead, October and November growth gave the greater yield in the Texas Hill country. This was in two – four year old shrubs. My field notes chart combined with the Stony Creek pigment report sorted by yield is below. Of course there are other notes on leaf weight/sun/process but this is an abbreviated compilation.
I’ve added my growing notes in the chart below in addition to the testing performed by Stony Creek Colors on my samples submitted. Chart is sorted by Indigo per Sample yield but I’ve included data to show you the seasonal cycle. The late season results were surprising. I was happy with the seasonal yield although it does include 4 batches that did not get washed to remove the calcium carbonate. I included the weight of pigment before washing and after washing. Towards the end of the season I had committed to washing with vinegar on all my batches and felt what I had measured earlier in the season gave me info I needed to see the difference. I calculated the the reduction in volume stored was about 80-90%.
I feel that reduction in volume was sufficient to justify the extra time washing pigment.As indicated in the indigotin chart, my Japanese Indigo did not perform well at all. I do not know why, but I suspect the intense sun here in central Texas had an impact on indigotin production. Even though I use a sunshade that does not seem to help the indigo production in the Japanese Indigo. Even looking at early season harvest my indigo levels were not high.
Details for those who want to know more….
In summary, I did only wet extraction in 2020, washed my pigment and compared seasonal extracts, washed vs not washed pigment %’s. Stony Creek Colors was very helpful in explaining their testing methods and indigo content % measurements to me. Having been educated by the grower/dyers in the FaceBook Indigo Pigment Extraction group I made the plunge. I am a measuring person, the type that likes to have an idea of what effort I am putting in and what I am getting out of it. My observation is that dried leaves were giving me good color on a small scale but exactly how much pigment are the dried leaves giving me? Wet extraction seemed to be the best way to measure the picked leaves, render them down to pigment and get a measure from that effort. I am a measuring person, so I have records of my leaf weight before I dry them to compare to the wet extraction results. I am also a frugal and “older” indigo farmer. I only want to pick as much as my limited equipment could handle and that I could lift. I had a good idea what I could pick, strip and lift in the AM and set out in my 5 gallon buckets to soak in the sun for a couple of days for the wet extraction.
My bushes told me what I needed to cut as I could see the bluish tinge in the leaves. I trimmed both varieties for shape and for the winds to avoid damage during storm seasons. My Indigofera Suffruticosa shrubs can last for at least 4 or 5 seasons if I don’t have a killing frost or cold spell. It is now game over due to our major freeze and power failure we had in February 2021. This 2021 spring I am back to restarting my plants from seedlings. It will regrow! My plan was to double check my testing but with my bush loss this year, I had a test set back. 2022 will be the year to test the IS again in central Texas. I set aside growing Japanese Indigo as I am focusing on prepping the IS beds which had settled over 3-4 years as the shrubs grew and this is my time to reprep those beds for new plants. Heaving Texas soil takes time for a home farmer.
Good bye to the 4 year old bushesWelcome to the seedlings
Washing Indigo Yield with 9% Vinegar
The kicker in the wet “measuring” process is the calcium hydroxide used to flocculate the indigo and get It to settle for filtration. Despite trying several methods of just using water settling the indigo, my observation is that this method takes way too long for the indigo to settle to a useable filtration state. Using the calcium hydroxide is much more efficient for me and enabled me to get on with the process and my life outside of indigo. But, the 4-6 tablespoons of calcium hydroxide added for flocculation adds weight and one cannot get a clean measurement of just pigment. So I investigated washing my pigment with 9% vinegar to cleanse it of the calcium carbonate which the calcium hydroxide inevitably becomes when mixed with water and oxygen. Leaving it as paste just adds to bulk and one must always add more slaked lime to reactivate the indigo chemistry to get the bonding. Plus washing reduces the sludge. I have heard mutterings that the vinegar washing impacts the indigo paste but I have not found anything in writing. Folks do wash only with water, next time I will try that against a vinegar wash and compare.
On a side note, I mixed ONLY calcium hydroxide and water and used my sump pump as if I were mixing a flocculation brew to create a test. I washed it about four times and did see a major reduction in calcium carbonate volume. My observation is that I had the greatest reduction with the 9% vinegar after two washes. Wash 3 & 4 worked but just seemed like extra effort just because I could. Unfortunately, at that time my mom was having a round of health problems, so I did well just to complete the vinegar washes and capture photos. My intent to measure reduced volume each time was thwarted by real life outside the dye patio. Sometimes I just had to walk away from the dye patio process and leave everything to wait for me until mom was cared for. But visual observation of the process showed the reduction was substantial despite the lack of measurement of the process.
Watching the vinegar work on the calcium carbonate
Two Looms was very generous with information as to how they clean their indigo with citric acid or hydrochloric acid. However, we are on a well and septic system with direct discharge to the Pedernales River and I felt like that journey was beyond my chemical skill set, hence 9% vinegar. I haven’t tried 20% agricultural vinegar but it is definitely on my list. I need to investigate safety measures needed for that level of acid and recommend that one check the MSDS data to understand the risks of 20% agricultural vinegar. It is a chemical that can hurt you. Nine percent works just fine for me. We are sitting on alkaline limestone, so I don’t feel real bad about discarding vinegar dissolved calcium carbonate water into our natural system.
I found 5 gallon buckets and the Dudas 25 micron filter really useful for washing the pigment in manageable amounts. I usually wash it with a 3:1 9% vinegar to water at least twice AFTER the normal filtration is done. I found the wet paste mixed well with the vinegar brew. One learns to mix the vinegar in slowly or you get the lava foam effect and can lose solution from an overflow accident. Keep an eye on the foam reaction. That is the vinegar hitting the calcium carbonate and dissolving it. This is a good thing except when it overflows your filter. This step takes time but if you’ve been extracting indigo from your leaves you aren’t in this for a quick process.
The benefit of washing with vinegar means I am not storing wet paste and the dried and washed pigment is MUCH easier to grind. The volume reduction is significant between wet paste and dried pigment and does not require a refrigerator or extra storage space. If you do the math on my chart above you’l see that I had a 60 – 90% reduction in volume. Here is a link to a YouTube video on my vinegar washing, you’ll bounce over to YouTube, sorry, WordPress changed some functionality and I could not get it directly into my blog. This gives you a view of how I wash my home grown indigo and ALSO how I wash the Big Jar at the end of the season to retrieve my indigo for the next solar season. I learned about storing mud from one season to the next from the indigo masters in Sapa, Vietnam who were very genorous with their knowledge. I met them thru Above The Fray – Textile Travel, a great journey with friends a couple of years ago.
I’m glad I went to the trouble and expense to separate out batches over the season and get the analysis of indigo content. My next step is to compare my dried leaf output to the wet extraction to get a general idea of what 100 grams of dried leaf indigo gives me compared to my pigment. More math is in my future when I am in the mood.
This was an extremely long blog entry. Any suggestions, questions or comments would be most welcome. Deb Mc
Back on July 17th I put a pound of Indigofera Suffruticosa leaves to soak. In the Texas heat it was ready to pull the leaves and move on to pull the pigment. I had time so I had used my well water (about 8-9ph) to soak the leaves and separate the pigment. And I waited for the pigment to settle.
Ready to give up the pigment!
And I waited. Little drained thru my Duda 25 micron filter, pigment was evident but the water was a beautiful blue and looked happy to wait for evaporation to happen.
Waiting for water extraction
Come August 3rd I was done waiting, I poured off the liquid into a holding bucket and stopped when pigment paste was evident in the pour. This went into my coffee filter system. It is not beautiful or useful for large quantities but works if you parse out your work.
Paste from 1# of Indigofera Suffruticosa leaves by water extraction only
This paste is still wet and has a bit more drying to go before I measure.
Water extraction IS paste
But I still had half a bucket of dark blue water mocking me. So, I added 3 TBSP of calcium hydroxide and let fly with my paint mixer to aerate. The pigment/lime dropped like a rock and I could easily see the pigment ready to filter.
Pigment lurking in the bottom of the bucket
I poured the liquid off and captured the paste in my Duda filter again. I did have to clean my filters from the long wait for water pigment drop. The bottom side of the filter had molded from the heat and moisture. Ugly stuff. One day later my filtered paste volume had reduced enough for me to start my vinegar wash.
Capturing the paste for washing
Now, I am washing this paste because I want to see what my one pound of leaves yielded. Remember, I captured some of it with just a water drop but pigment remained to capture in order to get a full measurement.
I wash with 9% vinegar to dissolve the calcium carbonate that is formed during the aeration process. Others use a stronger chemical to wash but I will leave that process to them to explain. I am on a well and septic system so I prefer to keep my chemicals fairly intrusive.
CaCO3 + 2CH3COOH = Ca(CH3COO)2 + H2O + CO2. Limestone (CaCO3) combined with vinegar (2CH3COOH ) yields calcium acetate Ca(CH3COO)2, water (H20) and carbon dioxide (CO2).
One must always remember to leave room in your container when adding your acid to your brew. Remember the volcano science experiments as a child? Yea, you are gonna make foam. I always secure my jar in a laundry tub so if nature gets too explosive I can recommend my pigment.
So, I add more water to my paste, add vinegar and mix and watch the foam rise.
So now I have started the wash to remove the calcium carbonate. The water & dissolved goods will float above the paste & I will pour that off. I might repeat 3 times to get a good wash and then cycle thru my coffee filter setup again for the final paste.
Waiting for the dissolving to separate
At this point I’ll be able to compare the two pastes to see the color. More on that later. In the meantime I have 3# of processed leaf water that also never really dropped that I am going to lime tomorrow. And I need to harvest my Japanese Indigo for pigment extraction as well. The water extract was an adventure but did not work well under my working conditions. This is the year for extraction opposed to drying leaves. Definitely more work for extraction.
This week we hit 100+. I’ve finished as much planting as I can in Fort Indigo. The fences have been newly painted and hopefully will withstand the armadillo and possum incursions for grubs. The indigo bed was enlarged at the expense of a madder bed. This year I am mixing Japanese Indigo and Indigofera Suffruticosa in the same bed. The IS will shade the JI and the two have played well together when I trim the IS limbs up. Plus I have the added bonus that the JI beta enzyme appears to work with the SI leaves when the two are crushed together. More on that later this season.
Smaller earlier planted IS compared to spoiled IS seedlings held in pots to grow.Before the mulch the plants, both IS and JI, are placed by irrigation emitters to ensure water available in the hot seasonMulch in place, fence in place, now we wait for growth to kick in.For comparison, two & three year IS bushes happily growing under the eaves facing East. Note the new seedlings for this year.
So, if all goes well I will continue to practice with my indigo extraction and blender vats this summer. And, even more importantly I will have an Indigofera Suffruticosa seed crop this fall.
I usually don’t pull up my precious Indigofera Suffruticosa until grudgingly certain the plant has given up the ghost. Last time I pulled up IS was about three years ago when I got hit by a hard freeze. I lost all of my plants and did have to pull everything up. I remember that was difficult but they’ve been in the ground for three or four years. So this past winter I did lose a two year old plant, but the same vintage plants around it survived. So, here is a replay of the pull..
Two year plant succumbed to winter 2019/20 freezes.
So, the plant broke at ground level, not surprising since I have been doing spring watering. Rot has set in with the irrigation moisture on deadwood. So here is our second try at pulling the root.
So, yes, after two years full growth, the roots are deep. I won’t take a shovel to it due to its proximity to other plants. That root will stay in place.
And for those who remember my sad plant ravaged by caterpillars, it lives. Transplanted to a pot and spoiled for a couple of weeks the leaves are making another appearance. This will go back into the ground soon. It still looks sad but with the increasing warm temps and a permanent home in the ground it will thrive.
Truly unusual, indigo in mid-March. When I left on my travels in mid-January I noticed that, for the first time my Japanese Indigo had sprouted on its own. In January. I figured it would freeze back, but come mid-February it had grown well and was holding it own. I left the country again thinking our late February or early March freezes would put it in its place.
Well, I am home now, my husband did defend the plants thru one deep freeze (serious husband points) and the indigo is thriving, even blooming. Normally this time of year I would be turning the soil, enriching it, placing the drip hose and eyeing the seeds figuring out when to start the seed packs.
So, now what do I do? Let it continue to grow till it hits a foot and harvest it? I am tempted to do a pigment extraction. I usually dry & hold. Suggestions are welcome.
This is truly a bonus crop from last year’s seeds left in place. We still have cricket season in the near future. If I do see cricket chomping I will harvest. In the meantime I will dig out my seeds and prep my seedlings to drop in between these early bonus plants.
10 days & temperature increases and sunshine made a big difference. March 17th I planted my Japanese Indigo seeds, by the 27th I had sprouts! I ordered the wrong seed tray. Duh, but seeds planted in new tray sprouted sooner than my old method. I am smarter now despite myself. Next up I will plant my Indigofera Suffruticosa seeds. I’ll throw Cota and Hopi Sunflowers into the mix this year also. Maybe I can beat the birds to the seeds for dye this year.
I am still on bud watch on my older Suffruticosa plants. Will the 3 year old plants live longer? Did the freeze this January take the younger plants out? The drama of gardening continues.
Plus the Texas Persimmon is budding and blooming. Before I know it I will be out picking persimmons in July for the dye.
Just a moment of thankfulness…that I am neurotic about marking my skeins with knots and making notes so I know which skein was submitted to what process. I also prep labels with the date mordanted and knots represented by dots so I may look at the label after the dye pot frenzy is done and add the dye process. I usually have a plan written down so I don’t vear off in another direction while at the dye pot.
In November, between the holidays, I processed the last of my fresh indigo in a fructose and a traditional thio pot AND used my fresh cochineal AND tried to salvage my Hopi seeds AND mordanted some silk skeins. Skein craziness arises as one rinses and dries the skeins. Wet skeins all look alike. Trust me, once you are done with the dye process you are happy to wash the pots, clean up the dye area for the winter season, rinse the skeins and walk away and let them dry.
It is March now…I am returning to the skeins and matching labels, pot notes and skeins. Yikes, confusion reigns until you match the dots on the labels to the skein knots and dye pot notes. How did I get this color?
Success!! Now I need to reel some of this off and weave! I worked on understanding lampas this Jan/Feb on my playcation with weaving friends so I do have focus and a goal.
Next up I will plant my Indigofera Suffruticosa seeds. I’ll throw Cota and Hopi Sunflowers into the mix this year also. Maybe I can beat the birds to the seeds for dye this year.
debmcclintock 
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