Garden Dyes

Over the summer at the farm, we decided to try something new, experimenting with plant dyes! We had lots of fun dying scrunchies and towels for a fundraiser. Overall we would rate this experiment as a success! We used beets, beet greens, purple carrots, and marigolds as the dye colors, and in the fall we plan to continue trying new things such as goldenrod and other fall products from the farm. The Marigolds were the most successful having beautiful vibrant colors to use. Others were not as vibrant after we washed the items dyed. During the process we tried playing around with mordants (salt bath), we added vinegar and baking soda to different dyes to see how colors developed. We had lots of fun around here with the kids during our programming, for example, shredding all the veggies, cooking down the dye and preparing the fabric in a salt bath, putting them in the dye, and finally washing and drying them. We can not wait to try this again in the fall with different items!