Dye Plant trials: Planting of over 1,500 dye plants

We finally had a break in the weather and managed to get all our lovely seed crops and dye plant trials into the ground. It took a combined effort of 10 people over 5h of continuous planting, to get them all in. Tristan will give a much more detailed report by the end of May, but I can't wait that long! For videos, please visit our NATURAL DYERS ACADEMY'S CO~LAB ROOMS, we can't share videos on this blog, unfortunately.

Here is what happend on Thursday:

Nathaniel is rotavating the ground, while Jim Cronin and Tristan Lienhard are marking out the planting lines.

After marking, the individual trial batches are marked and plants were organized accordingly.

Jim is gave a short introduction on how to plant in clay rich soil: The key is not to compact the soil around the plant and plant the plants a good depth, so the compost is well covered. Why? When clay soil dries out, the soil shrinks quickly and the newly planted plants will be pushed up - risking the roots to dry out.

(Video only available in the Co~Lab Room: Growing Colours)

After 14h of loading and organizing each variety according to trial square, we are ready to move out...

It is a long slopped field - luckily Tristan built a plant tray carrier, though we had a hard time not to think of a funeral procession coming down the field after a while...

(Video only available in the Co~Lab Room: Growing Colours)

5hrs later, all the plants are planted and everyone is tired, but happy! :)

See you again soon, for harvest time! x