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Dye garden in April
Garden mail 01
This is part 1 of a small series about the year in my small dye garden. First of all, a few key points: I garden in a typical Berlin allotment, and I also want to harvest fruit and vegetables alongside dye plants, all that with very limited space. With typical Berlin soil - sandy and rather dry - and while living not right around the corner.
I prefer to start many plants at home in this situation. During germination, it's important that the soil doesn't dry out, especially for small seeds that are light germinators, because they don't have a protective blanket of soil - I can simply facilitate this better at home.
And then there are the slugs. They particularly like to snack on young plants. That was a real problem in 2023, when I had to replant some varieties several times... I can't collect slugs to remove them every evening, and I definitely don't want to apply slug pellets or similar. And at least in all the years before 2023, the pre-grown and thus stronger plants had a sufficient head start to survive the slugs. So I'm relying on that (and even more slug collars) again this year.
Beginning of April: Pre-growing dye plants at home
April 1: Time to sow. As in previous years I started my plants at home. I've got an improvised growing shelf with grow lights, unfortunately there's not enough space just on the windowsills. In April, I started two varieties of Dyer's knotweed, Marigold, Orange cosmos and two varieties of tickseed. And a few black hollyhocks, which spread themselves in the garden, but I want to help them again.
In my first few years with a garden, I started growing earlier, in mid-March - but this ended up being very crowded at home until all the plants could move out to the garden. If you have more space and good conditions, you don't have to wait so long.
Experimental cold frame for the dye garden
I also moved a few plants into a protected cold frame (built according to these instructions) for woad, weld, dyer's chamomile, black scabiosa and sulphur cosmos. Those I had already sown earlier, on March 21. After the plants had just emerged, I took them out into the garden at the beginning of April in rather mild weather. An experiment, especially to ease the lack of space in the apartment...
With one exception, I wasn't too worried about whether these varieties would tolerate the cooler nights outside.
In the end, I worried about sulphur cosmos rightfully... April was wild as far as temperatures were concerned! At first it was so warm that I took the cold frame off the raised bed after a few days. Soon the temperatures dropped, the cold frame was used again - and then there were even two nights of frost around April 21. The result: about a third of the sulphur cosmos plants did not survive. However, the rest looked (and still look) good. Only a little later it was already 29°C, so the cold frame had to be removed urgently. As young vegetable plants were also added, they were all covered with cotton gauze to protect them from nibbling birds, and a bit of shade certainly didn't hurt either.
Conclusion: It ended up being a bit of a back and forth with the cold frame because of the temperature fluctuations, but overall I'm happy with it. It relaxes the situation on the growing shelf and is also good for the plants in the cold frame (if you disregard the frost...). If you've ever had to deal with weak, leggy plants - these were not a problem here. This occurs when young plants are located quite warm (like in a heated room) and do not get enough light.
Another new thing: sowing flax!
For the very first time this year I also have flax (or fiber) in the garden, a variety called Nathalie, thanks to Mona from Wandelgrund. The first time I've had a fiber plant in my dyer's garden. But it's actually the logical consequence, isn't it?
In February, I was able to take part in a training course on flax with the Wandelgrund team. Excited and equipped with Christiane Seufferlein's tipps, I sowed flax on April 6. In a neatly prepared bed, in tight rows, close together. I had many doubts as to whether my preparation was really that good... And as recommended, I covered the bed afterwards. Because the seeds taste excellent to birds. I can now confirm this, because the next day there were several holes pecked in my cover! So I took it down again, and instead of cotton gauze I put a fine net on hoops over the bed.
This worked like a charm. After just one week, it was clear that the flax was germinating very well, apart from a few bare patches!
End of April: Sowing again
Of course, something always goes wrong. But then you can resow, and that's what I did on April 21: after the frost, I sowed a whole lot of sulphur cosmos again, protected at home. I was curious and took my self-harvested seeds from 2022 to see how well they germinated. Much better than expected, so I now have even more sulphur cosmos than planned. But after last year's slug experience, I prefer to back up plants, so that's ok!
There were also losses at home - I had let my pots of dyer's marigold get too dry. So only a few had germinated, and after an incident with a cat in the growing shelf, none of them were left. So here, too, I reseeded - and put glass lids on the top of the pots to keep the soil nice and moist. This works well, I just forget about it from time to time!
At the same time, all the plants that had already grown well were potted up to larger pots so that they can continue to grow well before they are finally planted out.
Wild plants in the dye garden
And back in the garden, I'm particularly pleased about two wild dyer's plants: St. John's wort is growing here for the first time! I won't be harvesting any of it this year, hoping that it will continue to spread here. Even if it has chosen a somewhat unfavorable spot. I planted tansy a few years ago, but only now are there somewhat larger stands of it - so maybe there's enough for a small dye pot. I also discovered a (presumably) Wild carrot (or Queen Anne's lace), which I'm looking forward to observing.
In April I also found the first 'wild' Hopi sunflowers. I wait for them to pop up every year and then carefully plant them in suitable places. I will also sow a few more, but not until the beginning of May.
Madder plants from previous years are growing fresh green again. The ones that are particularly protected are always ahead of the others... I could harvest two of my madder tubs with plants that are already three years old. But I'm only planning to do that in the fall. There's still some space in a large zinc tub that I only planted last summer, so I'd like to sow one or two madder plants to add here.
And last year's woad is preparing to flower, with tall flower stalks growing from the flat rosettes of leaves. Unlike usual, there are only three of these plants, which are already flowering at the end of April - a good two weeks earlier than in 2023. I reseeded it three times last year, but unfortunately the slugs didn't leave any more. I've learned from this to get more slug collars for the next few years...
Upcoming tasks for the dye garden
Almost everything should soon be out of the apartment and into the garden to 'harden off', i.e. get used to being outside: black hollyhock, various types of cosmos (some of which are intended for dyeing and some simply because they are so beautiful). The same applies to marigolds, tickseed and dyer's knotweed. But first I'll keep an eye on the temperatures, because those don't cope well with cold nights.
And I still have a few things to sow, especially Hopi Black Dye sunflowers and madder.
Before the big planting starts soon!
Do you grow your own dye plants? I'd gladly read about your dye garden, big or small!
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