May Lotito

Carla, you don't need to get it in the ground. People have success with potted figs all the time. I feel your potting mix might be low in calcium and pH. Many are high in peat and pine barks for drainage. Usually certain forms of calcium is added to correct that but they would be washed out over time. To think of high quality figs are grown in Mediterranean regions with calcareous soil! I am suspecting figs growing better near the house are benefiting from the alkaline concrete foundation. My figs and grape stopped growing in July and the terminal leaves turned small and deformed. Their situation got worse in August when there was no rain. I worried about acidic soil moisture got drawn up from subsoil (pH <5).  I made some bold moves by watering in hydrated lime with little bit of boron. It was a temporary fix and could go wrong but luckily both grapes and figs bounced back with healthy growth. In the long term I will do that with slow release natural minerals (gypsum/ag lime/dolomite/wollastonite). The point is, making the growing medium closer to the plant's native soil and it will be happy and healthy. I will message you the rate if you want to give it a try. Good luck.

OkI got 12 ears out of 12 plants of heirloom corn seeds from Judith in Arkansas Ozarks, 5/6 mountain morado from the 3rd planting. Zero from 9 giant Inca: 4 of them snapped in the storms and 4 tasseled without ear, one had normal ear but died later in drought and heat. The corn kernels are a little over 4 lbs.

The Arkansas heirloom seeds out perform the other two that are originally from very different climates, one with very short growing season and the other requires very long season. Yet I feel I can improve my soil mineral content to get all the varieties to grow better and healthier. The bloody butcher can go from 8-row to 12-row, for example. Despite low to no yield, Mountain Morado and Inca Giant provide valuable information about soil nutrition so I will still trial them next year.

I started picking figs from Chicago Hardy since mid August. Production is peaking right now for both CH and Olympian. Two more varieties are fruiting for the first time this year: pingo de mel and kadota. Another two varieties only have breba fruit buds. I lime the soil around each bush and that seems to help a lot, figs form early and those at the very tips are of good size. They will likely mature in the next few weeks, well before the first frost.

I like to pick the figs when they droop and feel soft. I leave them on the counter to continue ripening and eat the softest ones first. If I keep them on the twigs too long the ants will get to them.

Judith,  you can resuspend the pigments in a container of water. They will sink to the bottom, then pour off excess liquid. I took a pinch of the indigo powder I prepared a few days ago to test some shibori design quickly. I had to use a strong reducer this time since the volumn is so small. Traditionally alcohol from fermentation is the reducer in a deep vat. Last year I tried culturing indigo leaves in alkaline solution but couldn't get any spontaneous fermentation. I will try sukumo again, but I guess I need to buy the inoculants.

I would rinse with water to get rid of salt, then 5% vinegar to dissolve excess CaCO3, then water again. You can go on with a small dyeing project in the jar. Or let it air dry and ground up the powder. It takes a lot of materials for large project.

If the water is still very blue, you can take a couple spoonful out and test how much more is needed.  Just that you will have more calcium carbonate in the precipitation, which can be dissolved in the last step. Or just wait longer, sometimes I leave it overnight.

The color is right. Yes, I would filter at this step to get rid of small debris. Have calcium in water ready. Sometimes the precipitation has other impurities and clumpy that you can use plain weave cotton for filtering, resulting in something pudding like. I find it tends to get moldy and stinky if not stored in fridge or dried down. If purity is high, the precipitation would be fine grits that needs small pore size like coffee filter. You will find out soon.

Looking good. I would pour the water out so it has highly pure indigo. Bruised leaves let out all kinds of non-specific stuffs that might interfere with later steps. The solution is mainly reduced so you can't see oxidized flim on top. It's easier to just pour back and forth with a small volumn like this. Forget the mention that when you do the calcium precipitation, do it in a titration mode, i.e. adding drops of concentrated solution and observe the changes. Once you see phase separation just stop adding, stir gently, and let it settle for a few hours. With the clear glass you would be able to see dark blue sediments and water is light green.

We are on the same boat, except I also have armadillo coming out at night and digging holes in the wet spots. Soils are loose but some seedlings also get damaged.