Late Summer on the Farm

It’s been a couple months since I’ve shared a farm update and gosh have things been growing! The farm is in peak production and the dye plants are keeping me busy with daily harvests. I’m slowly filling paper shopping bags with dried flowers and other dyestuffs which is very satisfying. I’ve been keeping up with a rigorous schedule of weeding and farm maintenance in the morning and flower harvesting in the afternoons. I normally give up on weeding this late in the season, but it feels and looks great to be on top of things.

This summer has been the hottest and driest in all my 29 years of living in SW Colorado. High 90’s for nearly 3 months and no rain at all. It was harsh. The monsoonal rains normally arrive in late July and stick around at least through August but they missed us this time around. We were relieved when the rain finally reached us the last week of August. The rain came down fast and hard and we received 1” in 30 minutes. I felt so grateful and relieved watching the plants experience rain for their first time, yet at the same time I was bracing myself knowing how likely it could turn into a decimating hail storm at any second. Thank goodness it did not.

Late summer is the best. There’s so much that leads up to this abundance. Seeds planted, plants tended to, harvests to keep up with. Every project begins with a vision and I get to make it a reality whether through seeds and soil, or natural dyes and fiber.

My annual dye plant section of the farm is no-till, but this new perennial section was tilled. Now that the plants are established they will be mulched before winter and tended as a no-till garden going forward. For now I hoe the rows regularly to keep the weeds back and to break up the crust that formed from the hard rain. The plants can’t grow unless that crust is broken up to let oxygen in.

The Hopi Black Dye sunflowers are doing great this season. This morning I noticed the birds on them so this afternoon I need to put mesh bags over each head to protect them. The birds can find plenty to eat elsewhere. I work with the birds but not for them.

My safflower is doing great. It’s such a pretty plant, yet very thistly so not fun to harvest. I grow it every year but never get around to processing it. This year I have plans to process it and I’ll have a limited supply to offer in my fall launch. I’ll have a whole bunch of new things to offer this season which I’m excited about!

One of the new dyes this year is Navajo Tea which is native to the Southwest. The plants are pretty small making it difficult to harvest the flowers but it’s such a pretty plant. I will have a limited supply to offer this fall.

I’ll also be offering Sand Dock this year. This plant is rich in tannin so it can be used as either a tannin in the pre-mordanting process for cellulose fibers, or as a dye. I’ll write a blog post about it soon to share recipes.

I’ve been spending some time foraging for tannin rich plants this season so I can have them to work with and offer them in my launch as well. I will be offering apple leaves and bark, plum leaves and bark, black walnut hulls, Juniper, and a tannin rich oak mix of leaves bark galls and acorns. I’ve been experimenting with dyeing with all of these and I’m excited with the results so far. I shared a dye recipe for apple leaves and bark and the colors they yielded in this recent blog post.

My weld is looking amazing and I’ll begin harvesting it very soon. Last year my weld was really potent and it sure looks like it will be this year too.

I’m trialing several marigold varieties this year and this weekend I’ll be testing them in the dye pots. I’ll put together a blog post to share the results.

I will have a limited amount of Pericón to offer in the upcoming launch. This was my first time growing it and I’ll definitely continue to grow it in years to come. I’ll share a blog post as soon as I get around to experimenting with it.

Sadly the seed company I ordered my Sulfur Cosmos from sent me the wrong seed so I won’t have orange cosmos this year, only yellow and the magenta ones shown above.

I’m excited about these Royal Burgundy Black Eyed Susans. I also have two other BES varieties to offer.

Every September 1st I take the photo above to record the harvest so far. I love to look back on the previous years photos to see how the current year compares. Even though I feel like I’m behind, this photo compared to last year’s photo reassures me that I’m way ahead and that my vision of offering an expanded selection of dyestuffs is on point. There’s so much that goes into filling a bag of hand picked flowers!

My goal is to launch this season’s dye crop in late October. I hope to announce the date in my October newsletter. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter to receive an email when the sale goes live!