Gardening...

[aelfgyfu]

I'm excited about actually being around to garden this year. I do some every year, but since I've been moving around so much it's been limited for a while. I have no plans for moving, should be around the majority of the spring, summer, and fall, and have space to do pretty much whatever I want. However, the space is sort of daunting. I don't want

Comments

[gargoyal3]

So, I have lots of comments ;)

First, go buy "Gardening West of the Cascades", as our climate is crazy and the back of seed-packets is often not helpful here.

Flax is an annual plant, so until you are ready to process it, don't start a patch of it!
Go read this article: http://www.ribevikingecenter.dk/Admin/Public/DWSDownload.aspx?File=%2FFiles%2FFiler%2FForskningsrapporter%2FFlaxreport.pdf
It says you need 46 POUNDS of flax to make a modest sized shirt. The people who I've seen growing flax grow it by the field. Shrug. Yeah, it would be super-cool to have a thing made of home-grown flax, but be prepared for a large area dedicated to flax if you want a thing made from it....

As to dye plants....you can collect several of them as weeds locally, and for the same reason, I would strongly suggest NOT growing most of them in your garden, as they are invasive weeds that get out of hand (and out of garden) very fast. Additionally, several are a pain to grow, and likely would not have been produced "at home" in the middle ages. They were grown commercially, in large fields, very early.
At least for Viking Age, the top three dyes were madder, woad, and weld.
Madder is a PAIN to grow, it takes a long time, and you have to harvest the roots. Like, good color from 3 year-old roots...
Woad is a horrible, awful, evil, yucky, all-bad weed. If you want some, go to Northern California, witness the destruction it has wreaked on the landscape, and pick a truck-full. DON'T GROW THE STUFF IN OREGON!
I don't know as much about weld, except that the actual chemical constituent in the dye is also available in our already established Scotch Broom. I find NO reason to introduce a new weed (or take up room in my garden) to get a chemical that grows on every hillside.

As far as I can tell, most home dyers would have purchased most of their dye, or gathered it wild. There are TONS of good things to gather around here, and it is often cheaper and easier to just take a trip to where it grows as a weed than try to grow it in your garden.

[aelfgyfu]

I meant that I won't have to process the flax until it's grown - as in not this month. I have plenty of space (up to an acre really) to grow and process it, and am doing it largely for the experience, not to go into production, so the ick factor isn't a big deal for me.

And ok, I won't grow woad. ;-)

[aelfgyfu]

Oh yeah, and that article is what had me thinking it might be fun to mess around with some flax. Is open on my computer right now... I just want to try it out, not start a commercial venture or weave a whole shirt.