Although there are many weavers throughout Latin America, the Zapotec weavers of Mexico are famous for their beautiful colored textiles.  Their traditional hues were derived from plant materials indigenous to their area.  With time plants such as indigo were introduced, and finally the analine dyes of the late 19th century. 

Here you'll see the primary dyes used by weavers who seek to create the more natural color schemes of their ancestors.  The blue is from indigo.  The basket of green lichens produce both green and yellow yarns, and sometimes orange.  On the right is dried cochineal, the famous red dye made of a tiny insect that inhabits prickly pear cactus.  It is dried as preservation, then ground into powder and mixed with water to produce a vivid red color.

No matter where you live, indigenous peoples have found plants for natural dyes and paints to color their world.  Discover what Native Americans used in your area and plants that the pioneers brought from  Europe.  For the needle worker of any kind, experimenting with natural dyes is a beautiful way to begin with the arts of sustainability.

On an Italian mountainside long ago, animal sacrifices were offered to the gods by the elite of the Roman Empire.  When it rained, the byproducts of these burnt offerings flowed down the slope, mingling ash and fat together before they finally dumped into the Tiber River.  It was along these riverbanks that frothy bubbles appeared, which indicated this combination had turned the runoff into soap.  This discovery gave birth to the modern soap manufacturing we know today.

            But soap was used by indigenous cultures around the world that had no knowledge of the ash and tallow technology.  Their soaps were derived directly from plants that contained naturally occurring saponins.  These chemicals evolved to protect the plants from hungry wildlife and insects.  Organic gardeners know that mildly soapy water sprayed on a plant kills insects, which is the first line of non-toxic defense.    Similarly soap probably doesn’t taste good to gophers ether, so plants contain saponins to deter these and other root-eating rodents.    

            The most widely used soap plant in North America is the yucca, which is native to a huge range across the west and south.

Some species such as Spanish bayonette (Yucca aloifolia), and Spanish dagger, (Yucca gloriosa) are native to the southeast.  They are found from Texas to Florida and north to Virginia.  These make exceptional garden plants for humid climates and were the very same plants used by the Seminoles and other tribes within these ranges as a source of soap.

In the west, other yucca species are distributed far and wide, most often in arid high desert or dry mountain ranges.  All species contain saponins in the roots, particularly soaptree yucca, (Yucca elata), which was widely harvested by Native Americans for use in washing body, clothing and hair.  This and many other species that produce stout short trunks were the most valued because the Indians did not have to cut through the sharp tipped foliage to reach the root crown.  The trunk itself also contains saponins known as amole, which are still used today in rural Mexico.

            The traditional way to harvest the soap is to dig up fresh roots and cut them into small pieces.  Amole was also harvested this way by splitting the trunk and then cutting each segment into smaller pieces.  These were then pounded or crushed to release the saponins from the surrounding fibers.  The crushed material was mixed with a small amount of water to free the soap in solution.

            One contemporary approach to using yucca soap is to grate fresh roots as you would cheese into very small bits.  These are then packed into the toe of a pantyhose leg and tied off into a dense ball of fibers.  When you drop this bundle into water the saponins are released.  Try floating these pantyhose balls in your bath and use as a natural body wash, or rub them onto the hair as shampoo.  You can also throw this ball into the laundry for organic detergent.

            Never harvest wild plants.  It’s best to grow your own yucca soap if you’re interested in self sufficiency and learning the old ways of doing things.  There are tales of Indian women who preferred their wild soaps long after the manufactured ones became commonplace because they said yucca left their black hair far more lustrous and soft.             

Whether or not that old Roman altar was in fact the birth of soap in the west may be hard to prove.  However, there is no doubt that plant sources were in use for thousands of years before the rise of the Empire, and today in the urban homestead, they may indeed offer a free, nontoxic natural soap for hair, body and clothes.

They are known as horsetails, but this reed-like plant is both a living fossil and a most useful tool.  Though it looks like bamboo, Equisetum hyemale is a very primitive plant that dates back to the Age Of Cycads and Dinosaures. It is an evolutionary dead end that has changed little since its early age, but like most prehistoric plants merely reduced its size from that of a forest tree to the height of a woman, to better adapt to a radically changing world.  

These horsetails show its 2 types of growth.  Infertile bottle rush form on the left and smooth fertile rods on the right.

Each cell of Equisetum contains a high amount of silica, which is a sand like substance which gives the plants a unique rigidity.  Early on humans discovered that this was an excellent abrasive surface akin to that of sandpaper.  During the Middle Ages the reeds were called "pewterwort" because they could be used to clean pewter implements without scratching the surfact of this soft metal.  It may even prove suitable for modern Teflon.

Though it resembles bamboo, the pencil sized rods of horsetails contain cells with rigid silica in their walls that makes the surface abrasive.

It was a common tool for Native Americans who used it to sand their arrow shafts.  Later pioneer women bundled them into scrub brushes to scour their pots, hence another name, scouring rush. They found it along the edges of waterways where survives on both dry land and when inundated by high water. 

Too primitive to produce seed, horsetails produce cone shaped sporangiums atop the fertile rods that open to release their spores to the wind.

Every urban homestead should have some if for no other purpose than to provide these same values, but you'll also find horsetails  a beautiful and educational addition to the family garden where fun and learning go hand in hand.

Some flowers are better when they're dead.

That's why this group are called "everlastings".  The primary annual types are strawflower and statice which bear flowers that are stiff to the touch, even in the peak of bloom. 

The blue statice flowers hanging in my kitchen were salvaged from a party table setting.  I fished them out of the garbage can and hung them over the sink to dry.  Today the stems are a dull brown but those rich cobalt blue flowers are as potent today as they were in that bouquet.

Grow these plants from seed each summer and you get to harvest a whole crop of decorator flowers for free that last for years.   Treat them as a vegetable and sow into your food garden to make them easier to care for.

Annual statice in the garden.

The annual statice is Limonium sinuatum and varieties offer a wide range of colors.  All are based in blue and purple, but there is also pink and white.  If you're hooked on the cobalt blue, buy seed in that color only.  If you want colors, sow a packet of mixed varieties.

This image shows four phases of strawflower development: bud, semi-bud (top right), open, and finally brown center seed forming stage.

Strawflowers are shorter more manageable plants that you can integrate into your beds and borders.  They can be purchased more easily in a six pack so you need not start them from seed unless seedlings aren't available.  It's important to know that strawflowers continue to mature after you've picked them, which can spoil their dried beauty.  To make sure your everlastings stay beautiful, pick them in semi-bud state so that they can open to perfection while drying out.