Dye garden progress: we have flowers! And lots of leaves.

Let's take a midsummer's tour of my dye garden.

First up is cosmos. My oldest plants are blooming a beautiful red-orange. I harvest flowers every few days. It seems a shame to cut them when they are so beautiful – but I've been told that's how you get the best color, so into the plant dryer they go!

My two oldest hopi sunflowers live in the cosmos bed. They are over 5 feet tall and one is starting to flower. The other sunflowers are scattered in pots and buckets all around the yard.

Next door to the cosmos is my marigold bed – it's a little dense (oops, they are getting so big!!).

On the other side of the cosmos are my madder plants. They are in pots so I can more easily harvest the roots. At some point, I'll need to transplant these into larger containers.

Moving to the patio, you'll find a raised bed with my indigo. It looks like they are a bit stressed (raised leaves, curling, red tips) – maybe too much water?

In the back of the yard, I commandeered and old garden bed for my coreopsis. There are also a few cosmos/marigold plants in between the water cisterns.

And finally, there are a bunch of dyeable plants that I'm not tending. P planted some, and some were here when we moved in: pomegranate, loquat, blackberry, sage, passionflower, and more...

Year of Stories recent read: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer