Marigolds

Marigolds are a great dye stuff. They are easy to grow, easy to pick and easy to cook up into a great dyebath. They always give you a yellow/orange color on wool but the exact color can be so different. You might get a somewhat startling green orange, a true yellow, a yellow orange or a true orange or even occasionally a dark gold. It all depends on what type of water you use, how much sun or heat or cold the plants have seen, how much rain you've had and what type soil they are growing in. But they never fail to give good color!

Back in our old house out in the country, I always had one 7' diameter garden bin planted in marigolds. Year after year, we grew marigolds and I would dutifully pick all the slightly older blooms every three days or so all through the summer and fall. They need to be dried if you aren't going to use them immediately so I would load up a flat pan with blossoms and set the oven at it's lowest setting - 170 degrees. It took about a day to dry out the flowers. I would stir them occasionally when I thought about it. When they were bone dry, I weighed them out and packed them in bags and put a tag on them.  We sold out every year. 

Then we moved into town. We have been here for a year and a half and are only just now getting our back yard landscaped. One of the things that is going in is a raised garden bin especially reserved for marigolds. All the plants arrived today and by Friday we should have lots of dirt in the garden bins and lovely plants scattered around the back yard. I'm excited!

In the meantime, I bought a single marigold plant a couple of weeks ago and it has been flowering! I have my first dried marigolds in over two years. I don't have enough to sell yet but I will let you know when I do!