Processing the first Indigo of the Year

I was able to plant some of my indigo starts really early this year. We had an unusually mild spring here in NC and I was able begin planting at the end of April. This has allowed me to began harvesting some of the mature indigo. I documented the process in photos to help explain the beginning steps of indigo processing. Next spring I plan to compost this indigo into Sukumo for dyeing.

Here is part of the newly harvested indigo plants. I am growing Persicaria Tinctoria, or Japanese knotweed. It has natural variants in the plants and I ended up with a mix of both the rounded leaf and the pointed leaf varieties. Later in the year I will try to save seeds from the rounded leaf plants as they have been shown to create a darker dye after processing.

Because I was harvesting early, I did not cut the plants as close to the base as I normally would. I wanted the resining shoots to have time to mature before I harvest the second batch of leaves.

I stripped the leaves off of the stems before drying the leaves in the sun.

The stripped leaves drying in the sun. The bright green leaves turn blue green as they curl and dry.

Dried leaves in the bowl and a group of stems drying. After the indigo leaves on the bunch of stems have fully dried I will strip them off the stems and store the leaves for further processing later. I hope to harvest again in mid July and then again in August.