Grow your own dye plants - it's fun and very rewarding

摘要

As if you haven't got enough to do in the garden! Despite that, growing your own dye plants is both enjoyable and satisfying. I only grow a few, the easy ones, which take little looking after apart from weeding.rnIf you pick woad leaves before the plant starts to flower, which is usually in its second year as it's biennial, you'll get lovely, soft-grey blue colours. It contains the same pigment molecules as indigo -indoxyl. For dyeing I use the method in Gill Dalby's book Natural Dyes, Fast or Fugitive.