Sowing the 2025 Summer of Flax
from research activities to getting hands dirty
The past couple of months have been busy here at Saga Hill! As usual, keeping up with the blog is a back-burner activity. But it's time to share what is happening!
Between preparing and teaching fiber classes (primarily knitting). . .
My linen cloth knitting workshop at the American Swedish Institute
The promise of finding a good perennial flax for fiber use is exciting since perennial flax is more suited to growing in the upper Midwest and is harvested by cutting the stalk at the root crown, which might allow the plant to have more than one harvest in a year. It is also easier to harvest with common farm equipment. Plus, finding a suitable perennial flax for fiber use would open an even broader scope of applications, not just for linen but for bio-industrial use.
The flowers from my home perennial flax plants have already started blooming.
It is very exciting to be part of this research venture! However, the project’s completion timeline is very tight due to a funding deadline. I have over 40 laundry-sized bags and bundles of perennial flax to process by hand into fibers by the end of July, and our weather, so far, has not been especially cooperative for the first step—the retting (rotting) of the stalks to release the fibers found in the bast material.
I am using cattle stock tanks to ret the perennial flax cultivars.
As you can see above, I am using stock tanks to ret the fibers, which would normally be a great method for retting if the weather were warm. But this year, it’s a challenge to keep the tank temperatures in a good range for retting. It’s been quite cold and rainy for the past few weeks. And, with not enough electrical outlets, I don’t have the option of plugging in heaters for all five tanks. Fortunately, the tanks are black and absorb ambient heat rather well. I also found black covers for the tanks that hold the water at a surprisingly steady temperature, even if it is cooler than I’d like to see due to ambient temperature fluctuations. All-in-all, the next two months will be a time of discovery in the wider world of linum usitatissimum! However, please note that I won’t be able to share my findings, as this is a research project. But perhaps when the study report is released, I will have an opportunity to tell you more.
Gale Woods Farm—a new annual flax crop has begun for the summer of 2025
Due to the uncooperative weather this spring, the planned crop at Gale Woods Farm has had a slow start but has now suddenly taken on literal growth!
We were coming to the end of the flax sowing season at the end of May, and, due to the weather and other farm issues, the seeds had not been sown yet, so the farm’s garden manager decided to use a grain drill to plant the crop this year. It was the quickest method of sowing the seeds during such rainy weather, and an efficient means of finally getting the seeds into the ground before it’s too late for the sowing of linen flax. (Early spring is the best time to sow annual flax—early April is best for our region.)
Grain drills sow the seeds in rows, and the grain drill that the farm used is really set for perennial seed flax sowing, not annual flax. That means the seeds were sown in rows that are somewhat far apart, ranging from 2 inches to 6 inches apart. But when annual flax is sown in rows, the usual goal is to sow it in rows with little space between them so the stalks will grow with less branching and support each other. It will be interesting to see how the stalks mature this summer between the wider-spaced rows and the narrower ones. Will some branch out too much to achieve good fiber for linen? Time will tell!
The Gale Woods Farm annual flax plot for 2025.
About 100 lineal feet of seeds were sown on May 27th, and the seedlings emerged around June 4th. This year’s seeds came from last year’s farm crop of Avian linen flax that we rippled from the stalks at the end of last summer. The farm garden manager conducted a seed test in early spring to assess seed viability. There was an approximate 90 percent germination rate, so we knew the seeds would be good for this year’s crop.
The test seeds were sown in a greenhouse flat.
Since it feels like murder to me to toss any baby seedlings, I planted the flax seedlings from the seed test into pots at my home/studio. I’ve planted annual flax in pots in the past, but have found that they grow to a certain height and then lodge and die off. This year, I used soil with no added nitrogen (extra nitrogen can cause lodging). I’ve also learned that even though the roots of the annual flax plant appear to be very short—actually only a few inches long—there are finer, hairy roots that go much deeper. So, I planted the seedlings in deeper pots than I have in the past (in pots with a 9-inch soil depth) in hopes of getting these stalks to make it to maturity.
The test flax seeds have grown into tall potted plants!
I might find that I need even deeper pots, as the stalks are now 24 inches tall and seem to be slowing down in growth. Since they have been growing for 60 days (from when they were sown in the greenhouse flat), they are due to flower soon, so perhaps they are putting their energy into developing the flower capsules, or they are stunted by a pot that is too shallow for their full growth. If they are nearing the end of their growth and about to put out seed capsules, the stalks will be shorter than last year’s crop, which averaged around 40+ inches. But I suspect the height difference is due to growing in a pot that is still too shallow for their full maturity. After 60 days of growth, the flowers should be starting to appear, and they are not. As a comparison, it will be interesting to see how tall the flax from the same seed supply grows in the field this summer, where the ground depth is unlimited.
The Annual Flax Crop at the Farm Today
This morning, I went out to Gale Woods to see if the seedling rows needed weeding. A benefit to growing them in rows is that the weed situation is easier to manage. Plus, due to closer management of the seedbed, there were very few weeds to pull.
The plants are already about 1–2 inches tall after one week of emergence. They like the current cool, rainy weather, so that is a good aspect of this fickle June.
Come out to Gale Woods Farm to visit the crop (7210 County Rd 110 W, Minnetrista, MN 55364)! You will find it in the field located on the right, just after you enter the gates of the farm. Look to the far back end of the cultivated area. The flax rows are at the far right-hand end of the field, running south to north. Since annual flax (linen flax), when grown in a field, typically takes 60 days to flower, be sure to schedule a visit around the middle to the last week of July. But come anytime to see the stalks grow taller and taller!