Dye Garden - Spring

The weather has been quite lovely in the Sierra Foothills. There’s a slight cold snap next week, but other than that it has been in the 70s and the perfect weather for gardening.

I spent years living in the city with no access to gardening space. It was always something that I dreamed about, and I know how special it is to now have gardens. Before we moved to the mountains, we cared for a few house plants (which we still have!), and now we have hundreds of things growing on our land.

This year I am growing a lot more food than I usually do. I have found that my drive for planting food waxes and wains with the years, but this year I am trying to grow as much food as we can eat, preserve, and share.

So far we have garlic, chives, cucumbers, squash, radishes, scallions, French onions, potatoes, lettuce blends, mint, corn, blackberries, jalapeños, basil, oregano, thyme cilantro, snap peas, strawberries, carrots, olives,

For fruit trees, our 2 pear and 2 cherry trees are entering their 4th year since we transplanted. We have seen some fruit over the years, but the birds and squirrels usually get most of the fruit. This year the trees are heavily fruited already.

The legacy Frankenfruit tree is overflowing with fruit. It’s been thinned out once, and I’m looking forward to the jam we will be making with the honey sweet fruit we harvest; apricots and plums,

I added a dwarf fig tree a few weeks ago. It’s still going to grow to be 10-20 feet tall, but I am potting it up slowly to control growth. I may see some fruit this year, but I think it’ll be a few years before we have a strong harvest. Thankfully, my mother in law has a well established Fig tree, a lemon tree, pomegranate, and mandarin tree. Her climate is slightly different, and we exchange harvests from our homes.

In my dye garden, the Golden Maugrites are close to flowing. This will be year 4 since I sowed my first seeds, and this crop has self seeded and provided a ton of flowers each year. The plant material creates a beautiful yellow color. At 50% WOF the color is buttery and creamy. Att 100% WOF, the color is a strong bright yellow that rivals Weld.

I have seeds for Madder & Weld, and need to get them in the ground this weekend.

I’ve also been dragging my feet on starting my Indigo seeds. Last March I raised seeds in the greenhouse and transplanted a few months later. This year I’ve decided to direct sow my seeds. If I can get the timing on direct sowing in my climate, it would be easier to start seeds outdoors. I’m setting up new garden beds for the Indigo this weekend, and will start sowing after the cold snap.