Japanese Indigo

These pink-flowering plants turn your fabrics a brilliant blue when their leaves oxidize. This buckwheat family species originates in Asia and Eastern Europe, and has been used in East Asia for millennia as a dye plant, especially in China, Japan, and Korea. Read more from our grower from 2020-2022, Mr. Bernard Singleton of Nebedaye Farms: Grown throughout the world in tropical and subtropical climates, indigo was grown in South Carolina in the 18th century to produce blue dye that was exported to Europe for use in the textile industry there. At one point, indigo dyestuff, behind rice, was South Carolina’s second most profitable commodity for export. While credited with having great success in indigo, Eliza Pinckney’s work has been greatly exaggerated. It is thought that African captives transported to South Carolina likely brought some of their knowledge and skill around indigo production directly from the African continent, or from experiencing working with it in the Caribbean prior