Saturday, October 5, 2013

Last goldenrods Viimeiset piiskut


Viime viikolla pidimme vapaapäivän ja kävimme tapaamassa vanhempiani Tampereen lähistöllä. Siellä piiskut olivat vielä hyvin kukassa ja keräsimme niitä heidän puutarhastaan isäni kanssa kotiin vietäväksi värjäystä varten. Siskoni otti tämän kuvan ikkunan läpi.
Enemmän piiskuvärjäyksistä täällä.
Kotiin palattuamme illalla seuraava yö olikin tosi kylmä, -5,5°C, ja viimeiset keräämättömät väritattaret olivat paleltuneet kaksinkertaisen harson alla. Keräsin niitä kuitenkin myöhemmin kokeilun vuoksi uuttumaan, siitä lisää myöhemmin. Kasvihuoneessa oli lämmitin, ja siellä olevat tomaatit ja kukkivat väritattaret ovat vielä kunnossa, mutta varmaan ensi viikolla nekin pitää leikata ja ottaa kukkavarret sisälle jälkikypsymään maljakkoon.

IN ENGLISH
Last week we took a day off from work and went to visit my parents who live near Tampere, 200 km north from our house. Goldenrods were still in full flower in their garden, and we cut them with my father for me to use for dyeing. My sister took this picture from the house through window.
More about dyeing with goldenrods here.
After we returned home, the next night was really cold, -5,5°C, and the last of japanese indigo outside got frost bitten, even though they were under double horticultural fleece. I still harvested some of the frost bitten leaves afterwards, more about that later. In the greenhouse there was a heater and last of the tomatoes and also flowering japanese indigo are all right there, but I guess I should cut them next week and take inside, put the cut flower stems in the vase and hope the seed pods will ripen.

6 comments:

  1. Greetings, Leena - I always enjoy your posts! I am planning to harvest goldenrod this weekend, and I wondered: do you find the yellows to be as colorfast now that you are no longer using the stems?
    Thank you for all your wonderful information on plant dyes...I am a novice, but enjoy my experiments :)

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  2. Thank you Quinn:)
    I still use the leaves, I just strip the leaves from the stems and use them with the flowers. I think (but not have made proper comparaison!) that the color from the leaves plus flowers is more lightfast than the color from only the flowers. It also depends on how you use the dyed item, sometimes the lower lightfastness is enough (socks or such which don't get very much sun, compared to for instance a hat).
    Yes, experiments and finding out new things is one of the best part:)

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  3. Thank you, Leena! If my goldenrod experiment is successful, I will blog about it and link back to your post, if I may?

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  4. It's that time of year again, isn't it? Best wishes on your dyeing and harvesting the plants before they freeze!
    Hello from Idaho,
    Judy

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  5. Judy, you are so right:) The year goes by fast. A long term weather forecast says the winter is not quite yet here, but it is getting slowly colder, and there are still things to do in the garden to prepare it for winter. There are still late mushrooms in the forest, and I'm going to collect tree leaves when they fall, especially maple leaves gave nice yellowish brown last year.

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