#2- Too Many Flowers: Experimentations in creating pigment from Dahlias

This last week was full of flowers.

Dahlias on Dahlias on Dahlias.

So. Many. Flowers.

While there was plenty of planning, organizing and researching done this last week there was also a good deal of foraging and collecting accomplished before the torrential downpours that will be all to normal once again. I harvested plenty of Lichen to experiment with, made dye from left over neighbors grapes and started experimenting with carrots and cabbage.

But the highlight was flowers. I ran out of room in my house. My floors are covered. My counters look like a garden. My makeshift dryers are stacked and my freezer is overflowing with color. The problem is I still can’t seem to figure out a way to extract those dark, full, powerful colors that those magenta and red Dahlias hold. They stain my fingers purple, and after bringing them to a simmer the dye bath (water) turns a dark purple or red.  But the best color I have gotten out of them is a very, very bright yellow.  I am now experimenting with freezing and drying the Dahlias while they wait for me to figure out what step is next. I am going to explore more with using the petals raw and pounding out the color with a mallet as well as some eco-prints. But this is time consuming and not exactly the outcome I intended, but I think I have to dive into this to better understand what is capable with flowers, pigment and fibers.

With flowers I feel like I am racing against the clock to capture and transfer there color. I found myself wandering gardens staring at fallen petals thinking.. ‘what a waste’ I could have used those. But that garden will use them, and that’s what it’s all about, mother nature has its cycles worked out, we just need to now.

#1 Making Connections: community, food waste and natural dyes

While my Internship at the Thurston County Food Bank is over that doesn’t mean they don’t have my number to call and ask for favors, which I am thankful for. This last week I helped the Food Bank prepare for their Volunteer Appreciation Lunch and the Thurston County’s Food Literacy Day.  Luckily I am easily able to create a symbiotic relationship out of this! We went to ….. garden to harvest flowers for bouquets. Each bouquet had flowers from partnered school gardens, farms who donate and some locally foraged greens. It was wonderful to see another school garden, this one owned by the city on a wet land. This meant that the infrastructure was impressive and that this garden would be there for a long period of time.  While picking flowers I scavenged the ground for fallen or passing flowers, mostly dahlias.

Next I went to Saint Marks Lutheran Church, they have a large garden in partnership with the neighborhood, Mountain View Elementary and the Food Bank. Food Literacy Day was held at this garden, class by class the elementary students walked, skipped and screamed across the street to listen to a story about zucchinis and pick pumpkins they planted earlier that year. While at the garden I picked up flowers from the ground and harvested old buds and passing dahlias. I also harvested the remaining pieces of purple cabbage that would not be used. This was an awesome opportunity for me to stay involved and show support for the School Gardens Program, get my own project supplies and divert waste.

Then came the plucking of petals and the sorting of colors. With not much information on the internet regarding dahlias for dye, I am trying small batches to differentiate color and intensity even in the slightest.