Giant Ragweed for fiber?

I have not made any fiber from plant bast. I've played with cotton for maybe a combined 3 hours. I made 15 inches of maybe thread. It was very flimsy. It tore. Does that demonstrate my lack of knowledge in all fibers?

I took some past prime nettle and worked it fresh to see how known plant bast works. Wait what? Nettle? Yes the thread is about ragweed. I promise, ragweed is comming. But ragweed fibers are not well documented, so I wanted to see how a documented bast fiber works. You can learn all about nettle in Raven's Nettle A Long thread here.

Here is my poor thirsty expiring nettle. Maybe you can see that it has already dropped most of the seeds.

Full disclosure, just before seed set, we whacked most of the plants down and used them in liquid fertilizer. This is the sorry regrowth and desperate attempt to reseed itself. Left alone, the plant would be 4 feet tall, like the ones I'd left for this experiment, and I forgot to take photos of.... They were also sad as we're in our seasonal drought.

Here, we have, left to right, 2 four foot long side branches of ragweed, 2 10 ft tall stalks of ragweed, 2 six ft tall goldenrod stalks. 2 nettle stalks.


Goldenrod? Well yeah. It was just standing there next to the nettle looking all refreshed and just starting to develop flower buds. Maybe it would work? Never heard of it being used for fiber.

More coming.

I took a mallet and pounded the length of the nettle stalks. I turned them over, repeated that. Turned the stalk 90* and done it again. It looked like this
.



Here it is split open. You might notice that there is no pith to scrape out. Huh? Maybe because it is past prime? I may have scraped it anyway. Dunno.



I tried to bend the stalk to remove the woody inerds, but it kind just shattered everything. So I pounded some more and the bark just peeled off.



Here is the bark with maybe fibers rolled up and sharing space with Chinese red noodle beans to dry down.

This is the base of the center stalk, already scraped. But it's all splintered. I set it aside.


Here is the center stalk near the top of it. Looks more promising.




Here is all of it. The loops are a side shoot, with them pith scraped out, pounded some more. Bark fallen off. Or maybe it is still together? I hope to experiment more today...
To the bottom left is the other side shoot, with just the pith scraped out.

Does any of this appear to have promise?

What are you going to use these fibers for?
I went outside to pull a few giant ragweeds and in just a few minutes I was having sore throat and runny nose. They grew amid my bamboo so stems are all slim and tall, no branch up to 6 ft. I am thinking just like flax, slender and straight stems will yield better fiber.

For now, maybe garden twine. Maybe with years of practice, spin fiber nice enough for making it into something. Weaving? Looping? Crochet? Dunno. I sew well with woven cloth. This is a new journey.

Our ragweed haven't formed the flowers yet.

EDIT: Well, some have flowers. I'm pretending that they are not shedding pollen yet.

It's a bit late to help you now, but if you try it again, retting might help get rid of a lot of the pulp, or at least soften it, so you don't have to work quite as hard. I've not done it, myself, though, so it's just a semi-educated guess.

Retting? Um yeah. I've tried that. Now and then for years. Not every year, but some years several times. Clearly I don't know how to do it.  Month, 5 days, anywhere in between. I get rotted ragweed. Nothing that looks like it could be fiber. Maybe it has to do with the excess humidity here?

Here is today's adventure. The Man did the pounding. One blow all the way down. No repeat smooshing needed! Oh, and ragweed don't have a woody part separate from it's bark.

Oh, if the pith isn't white, but rather shades of brown, the bark/fiber part just splintered. I'm assuming that it is not good for fiber, so I discarded those portions. Mostly what was used, were the side branches, they all had white pith.

Example of not white pith.

I did have to split some stalks length wise to scrape out the pith.

Hmmm... There are several methods of retting, but I haven't done any of them, lol. So, I'm just guessing. I know one method is leaving them out on the ground in the rain & dew, turning them, every day or two, and the water methods require full submersion & daily water changes. Ha - maybe retting isn't the easiest way, but *for some fibers*, the only way? My understanding is that flax & stinging nettles are supposed to be retted... maybe not all do.

I’ve noticed that when I break off the sunchoke tops to feed to the rabbits and goats, it breaks cleanly.  The giant ragweed, 12 to 15 feet tall, has a strong fiber that doesn’t break, so I have to cut it.  I haven’t tried it, but I think it would be a great fiber plant.  I always let some grow in a designated area away from the main garden, because both plant’s leaves are  higher in protein than alfalfa, and make a good fodder plant.  The bees go wild over the pollen on the giant ragweed.  The seed feeds lots of birds over winter.  

May Lotito wrote:What are you going to use these fibers for?
I went outside to pull a few giant ragweeds and in just a few minutes I was having sore throat and runny nose. They grew amid my bamboo so stems are all slim and tall, no branch up to 6 ft. I am thinking just like flax, slender and straight stems will yield better fiber.

.

May, try goldenrod tea as an antidote.  

Hello Joylynn,

If you could make something useful out of giant ragweed, that would be absolutely AMAZING!  As for me, I could never do it as I am so terribly allergic to the stuff that actually working in it might put me at risk for anaphylactic shock--and that is no exaggeration.  But it is a long, fibrous plant and it seemingly grows absolutely everywhere, despite my attempts to control it by mowing.  So if this plant which has always been a noxious weed to me can become a useful, practical resource to you, then you have accomplished something that I have never done and likely never will.  As for just exactly how good a twine it will make, I have no idea, but by all means, please do find out and let us all know.

Great work,

Eric  

Faye Streiff wrote:

May Lotito wrote:What are you going to use these fibers for?
I went outside to pull a few giant ragweeds and in just a few minutes I was having sore throat and runny nose. They grew amid my bamboo so stems are all slim and tall, no branch up to 6 ft. I am thinking just like flax, slender and straight stems will yield better fiber.

.

May, try goldenrod tea as an antidote.  

Thanks,Faye. Actually I have picked some goldenrod blossoms. I ment to use them as natural dye but I have better choices. Great to find another way to use them!

I had ragweed grow up around my solar panels,  I did not know what it was, so I did some digging....

Interesting videos I found about ragweed ->

This is how it was used by native Americans.




A friend gave me this link

https://plantly.io/plant-care/ragweed-give-ragweed-another-chance/

From my research I have found that worms like the plant...      I have been harvesting this with an electric chainsaw, and I plan to use it with my electric wood chipper to make mulch / soil to go around my plants.