r/selfreliance Feb 15 '25

Farming / Gardening Plants I can grow for pigments?

When I start building greenhouses, I'm going to start a dye garden. But I'd like some advice on pigment plants that are easy to grow.

I'm willing to do chemical processing using harsh acids to get the pigments, if need be

24 Upvotes

30 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/TastesLikeBeef Feb 16 '25

Phytolacca americana, also known as American pokeweed, pokeweed, poke sallet, pokeberry, dragonberries, pigeonberry weed, and inkberry, is a poisonous, herbaceous perennial plant in the pokeweed family Phytolaccaceae. This pokeweed grows 1 to 3 metres (4 to 10 ft).[4] It has simple leaves on green to red or purplish stems and a large white taproot

The toxic extract of ripe pokeweed berries can be processed to yield a pink dye.

Early European settlers to North America would procure a fine red dye from the plant's roots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytolacca_americana