I'm looking for cotton (especially colored) and dye plants (especially indigo). I have an unfortunately modest trade list--this is my first year--but if anyone's interested, please let me know. I also, as you might guess, sew, spin, and knit, and would consider a trade for a handmade item; but it would have to be a substantial trade and/or after Christmas. Thanks!

I think that dyeing tends to shorten the flower life of most things quite a bit. Plants that are sprayed with dye/pigment such as poinsettias definitely tend to abort the flowers/bracts much faster than ones that are not. A regional chain of "superstores" here in the midwest was promoting their blue phals for Mothers Day. Quite a disgusting abomination IMHO, and most of them were pretty dead looking in the store already, whether it was the dye or just the fact that, like any big box, they abuse the plants, is hard to say.

was just wondering if anyone have the following plants for trade: -Cissampelos pareira -Cocculus orbiculatus (Queen Coralbead)⨠or any other plants that can be made into herbal jell-o

The simplistic explanation is called climate adaptation (among other labels) - the seeds Mother Nature planted had time to adapt to their environment and maybe 1 in 100 adapted and survived to germinate and of those maybe 1 in 50 live a normal life. The seeds we plant have had no such adaptation time and we plant far less seeds and expect near 100% germination of healthy long=lived plants. And we often get it simply because we waited when Mom didn't. Mother nature is really a lousy mother when it comes to taking care of her kids. She's the "Good Luck, Kid. You're on your own." kind of mother. But that really is overly -simplistic and much of the confusion results from mis-interpretation or mis-applicationof guidelines. For example: guidelines are written in broad generalities in the hopes of applying to most situations and to provide the best odds for success. So "Plants started too early outside will end up less vigorous than plants started when warmer." is referring to seeds direct seeded outdoors when warmer, not to transplants - seeds and transplants are two very different things - and is very true simply because the seedling once germinated under ideal conditions will be less stressed, less damaged, more healthy than the seed that germinates under less than ideal conditions. Plus the folks that write these guidelines know that we always want to rush the spring planting season - to our own detriment - so they say anything they can to try to slow us down. It seldom works. ;-) Dave