KJFM NEWS — Garden Talk is produced monthly at the Adair County University of Missouri Extension Center in Kirksville, Mo.

Indigo, also called true indigo is in the legume family and was one the original sources for indigo dye. It’s true native range isn’t well known because it has been cultivated and naturalized throughout tropical and temperate Asia as well as Africa. Marco Polo was the first European to learn of its use as he observed the smelly industry of making the dye in India. The dye is made by processing the plant leaves.  They are soaked in water and fermented to covert glycoside indican in the leaves to the blue dye. The dye has been popular for over 4,000 years.  Chemically made blue dyes changed the trade in the 1860s.