A Final Update! 

2025 Gale Woods Farm Linen Flax Crop

A month sure passes quickly! To update you on the goings on of the past month… 

About two weeks after the harvest, the flax stalks were removed from the fence where they had been hanging to dry. The periodic rains we were receiving were stunting the dry time, so it made more sense to put the stalks under cover in the farm greenhouse to further dry. 

The stalks were finally dry by September 23rd, so on the 24th, I used a garden rake to ripple (remove) the seed capsules from the stalks. 

There were fewer seeds in each capsule than we had from last year's crop. We are pondering why this is the case. There are a few possible reasons. My strongest leaning is that the late sowing forced the stalks to grow too rapidly in the heat of the summer, and that stunted the seed production in the capsules. Linen flax likes to be sown no later than the middle of the spring, since the timing of flowering at midsummer is what the plant seeks, and this year, due to the late sowing at the end of May, the timespan from sowing to flowering was condensed. And perhaps the seemingly endless rain was also a factor. That could have stressed the stalks. The end result is that we will have fewer seeds to sow next year from this year's crop. Fortunately, the farm has been storing a few pounds of seeds from last year's crop, so we can dip into that for next spring. Those seeds will probably not be as viable, as seeds lose about 5–10% of their viability each year that passes. Still, we will have something to sow next spring, even if it may be another challenging crop!

I immediately placed the rippled stalks in their retting vats on the same day I removed the seed capsules. They filled two tanks.

The next step was to fill the tanks with water and weigh down the stalks with large rocks. 

During the ret setup, I was closely supervised by the calf staff!

Then the daily monitoring of the tanks took place. The past week, from September 24– October 2, has been unusually warm, so the tanks maintained an average temperature in the low to mid-seventies Fahrenheit. 

The first full day of the ret shows the beginning of the bacterial action to come.

The subsequent days showed much more bacterial action!

Every day, I pulled stalks from the ret to dry test and confirm their retting state. You want to avoid both under-retting the stalks and definitely avoid over-retting them! If you under-ret the stalks, you can re-ret them later. But there is no turning back from over-retted stalks. 

After four days, I drained and refilled a portion of the water to encourage more bacterial action. You can see the extent of the anaerobic bacteria in the foaming of the water!

On October 2, the 8th day of retting, the stalks were showing the release of fibers in my dry tests, so I pulled the stalks, rinsed them… 

…and they are currently drying once more in the farm greenhouse. They should be sufficiently dry in time for the public Fall Fest event at the farm, where I will be demonstrating the mechanical processing of the stalks into fiber and the spinning of the fiber into yarn! 

Come see the resulting fiber from this year's crop!

Gale Woods Fall Fest, October 11 & 12, 10 AM to 4 PM, 7210 County Road 110 West, Minnetrista, Minnesota, 55364. This is a free event! More info can be found here: https://www.threeriversparks.org/fallfest

Gale Woods Farm Flax Harvest Day – September 3, 2025!

And so, the growing year has come to a close. The Gale Woods Farm linen flax crop has been pulled from the field! 

The harvesting crew consisted of three of us: the Gale Woods Farm manager, one of his crew, and me. We harvested the entire 125 x 4-foot plot in four hours on September 3rd. It was a rush harvest since the flax had approached maximum maturity at 100 days, and there was no time to waste! Besides, it was finally a beautiful day! A rarity this year—a day with no rain and comfortable temperatures! 

Our bundle count was 198. That is almost a quarter more than the number of bundles from last year. Considering the plot length and width were about the same as last year’s plot, the practice of sowing the flax in rows seems to be effective from a yield perspective. 

Some flowers were still blooming on a few stalks!

Of course, this year’s crop had its issues, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts. The reasons for some of the quality issues may be found as I ret and mechanically process the stalks. 

The primary issue was that there were many zones in the plot that contained stalks that were fully brown (as you can see in the image above), and they might be mixed with stalks that were still fairly green. Fortunately, more stalks were in the proper partial yellowing state, which means they are ready for harvesting. Because we’ve had such a wet and odd summer weather-wise, I had considered that the brown stalks possibly got hit with a fungus, although I don’t see any typical signs of that in the stalks. There also wasn’t a variation in the germination timing to explain the variation in maturity between the stalks, since they were grain-drilled into the rows at a constant depth, and all of the stalks emerged at roughly the same time. So why did some stalks mature so rapidly? What else happened to cause the browning? Perhaps further research, involving the processing of the stalks, will provide answers to these questions. I am also going to do some testing of the fully brown stalks to see if they actually retted in the field while standing, since some seem to be breaking down into fiber already.

The weeds we couldn’t control weren’t too much of a problem. The stalks were easy to pull, and the weeds were pretty easy to dismiss as the stalks were pulled, as you can see in the photo above.

The farm manager plans to plant a cover crop of peas and grain in the pulled space (see above), a good practice for replenishing the soil. Flax takes a lot of nutrients out of the soil. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: Flax should not be planted in the same plot for at least 5–7 years. That has something to do with not only replenishing the soil but also avoiding disease in subsequent flax crops.

Plan a visit to the drying flax bundles! 

Go to Gale Woods Farm (7210 County Rd 110 W, Minnetrista, Minnesota) and look toward the farm fence along the right-hand side of the entry road, and you will see the stalks hanging there until, probably, September 15th or so, weather-willing (no more rain!). 

The next step to complete the crop is to ripple the seeds (remove the seed capsules from the stalks) and ret the bundles by submerging them in water-filled stock tanks. For retting, warm weather is appreciated! The retting will probably happen in the greenhouse behind the barn in order to increase the temperature of the tank water, so that's another location to check out if you miss the stalks on the fence. If all goes well, the stalks may be rippled, retted, drying, or dry by the time of the Fall Fest, a public event at the farm on October 11 & 12. I will be giving ongoing demonstrations of mechanically processing the stalks into fiber at that free event. Check the Gale Woods Farm website for more info: https://www.threeriversparks.org/location/gale-woods-farm

Minnesota State Fair & Weavers Guild of Minnesota (WGM) Presentations

A view of my Flax to Fiber presentation display at the new WGM stage in the Creative Activities building at the Minnesota State Fair.

Thanks to all who attended this year’s Minnesota State Fair and stopped by the new, HUGE, WGM presentation stage! I had a blast speaking and demonstrating the steps involved with turning flax stalks into linen fiber! It really was fun to share the process and answer questions from the public. Other plant fiber presenters during the 12-day fair were Matt Holen of the University of Minnesota Horticulture Department, who spoke on his perennial flax-to-fiber studies (a project I was heavily involved with this summer), and Tom Michaels, a professor and hemp researcher at the University of Minnesota Horticulture Department, who spoke about hemp fiber and that growing industry. Tom even brought huge hemp plants to show where the fiber is extracted from! (I understand that their transport onto the fairgrounds was "interesting.”) Hemp fiber extraction is so similar in many ways to flax fiber extraction! (And no, there is no THC content to speak of in the plants—that aspect is closely regulated.)

Coming to the End of Summer – Gale Woods Farm Flax and the Minnesota State Fair

My visit to the Gale Woods Farm flax plot yesterday revealed the end of the flowering and a moth (butterfly?) continuing to gather pollen from the few flowers that are left. (See the peach-colored visitor on the flower in the center of the image. It was hard to get her in focus!)

Are the stalks even in there? It is hard to see the flax stalks because of the number of tall grasses and other wild plants that have popped up between the rows in the past couple of weeks. This is not how I would like to see the crop, but still, the stalks are healthy, and some have even grown taller!

When you take a closer look at the flax in the rows, you can see that the "weeds" are not among the stalks but between the rows. It's a healthy environment for the flax, even if it looks awfully messy! As Greg, the farm's garden manager says, we will be reverse-weeding the crop when harvest time comes, by pulling the stalks from around the weeds. The situation would certainly be worse if the crop weren't in rows!

In anticipation of the Minnesota State Fair (see below) and my presentation/demonstration there, I have been spinning and weaving last year's processed flax fiber from Gale Woods Farm. 

Here's some of the yarn I spun…

And the weaving in progress…

Come to the State Fair on August 22nd, and you will see the final woven fabric that I created, and the process of going from stalk to fiber. See ** below!

Bast plant fibers highlighted at the Minnesota State Fair!

This year, the Weavers Guild of Minnesota (WGM) has a new stage area in the Creative Activities building at the Minnesota State Fair, and to kick off the new stage, the Guild has arranged many intriguing fiber-related talks and demonstrations. Four of these focus on bast fibers, and I am thrilled to be one of the presenters (see August 22nd below)! Presentations are repeating three times during the day, at 10 AM, Noon, and 1:30 PM. (To find the new area, when you enter the main entrance of the Creative Activities building, immediately turn right and walk that side aisle for about 100 feet. You will see the WGM stage on your left.)

Here's the list of presenters by day and subject (note the ones in bold blue as they are related to bast fibers):

Thursday, August 21

Regenerating Regional Fiber Systems

Presented by Maddy Bartsch, Three Rivers Fibershed

**Friday, August 22

Flax as a Textile Fiber

Presented by Wendy Johnson, Saga Hill Studio

Saturday, August 23

Handcrafting the State Fair Fiber Arts Awards

Presented by Keith Piece, Alla Hale, and Barb Yarusso, Weavers Guild of Minnesota

Sunday, August 24

Adventures in Natural Dyeing

Presented by Natalie Reece, Weavers Guild of Minnesota

Monday, August 25

Cultivating Perennial Flax for Textiles

Presented by Matthew Holen, Department of Horticultural Science, University of Minnesota

(Matt is showing some of the results of the project I was contracted to work on this summer.)

Tuesday, August 26

The Ancient Art of Sprang

Presented by Sharon Wichman, Duluth Fiber Arts Guild

Wednesday, August 27

Nordic Weaving in Minnesota

Presented by Lisa-Anne Bauch, Weavers Guild of Minnesota

Thursday, August 28

Spotlight on Heart of the Lakes Weavers

Presented by Elizabeth Bayer, Annandale Art & Textile Center

Friday, August 29

Hemp as a Textile Fiber in Minnesota

Presented by Tom Michaels, Department of Horticultural Science, University of Minnesota

Saturday, August 30

Hmong Weaving and Fiber Arts in Minnesota

Presented by KaYing Yang, RedGreen Rivers & Mai Vang Huizel, Hmong Museum 

Sunday, August 31

The Art of Basketmaking

Presented by Debbie Johnson, Twin Cities Basket Weavers

Monday, September 1

From Fiber to Yarn in Minnesota

The Bloom is Nearly Off the Stalks

My visit to the Gale Woods Farm flax this morning revealed fewer flowers and more seed capsules that are turning brown. We remain on track for harvesting at the end of August!

The harvest this year is going to be interesting. Because of my tight schedule this summer and the continuously rainy, hot, humid, smoky weather, I haven't been able to tend the plot as it should have been tended. The actual flax stalk rows aren't too nasty with weeds, although the plot edges are buried in grasses, thistles, etc. It is even hard to see how the stalks are maturing, let alone get close to them! 

While trying to pull a few of the more massive grasses, I accidentally pulled a stalk. 

It is the length of much of the crop—32 inches—but branching has started halfway up the stalk, so the useful fiber will only be about 16 inches when it's processed. (Branching is preferred in the top 1/5 of the stalk for the best long fiber extraction.) Plus, the stalks appear to be thicker in circumference this year. I feared this would happen with the wider spacing between the rows. (See my earlier post about how the seeds were sown this year.) Of course, it may not be just the spacing issue that has caused this. Other factors, such as late sowing and the weather conditions, could have played a part. When I visit the flax next week, I will reach into the tighter rows to see if they have more favorable stalks. It was so miserably hot and humid in the field today, I didn't hang around for very long!

An Opportunity to Learn More About Bast Fibers at the Minnesota State Fair!

If you're in Minnesota on Friday, August 22nd, come to the Minnesota State Fair, Creative Activities Building. I will be presenting Flax as a Textile Fiber and demonstrating the mechanical breaking process that gleans the fiber from the stalk. My presentation/demonstration will be on the Weavers Guild of Minnesota's (WGM) new stage. It will be repeated three times, at 10 AM, Noon, and 1:30 PM. 

If you can't make it on the 22nd, there are two other days highlighting bast fibers on the new WGM stage: On Monday, August 25th, Matt Holen, a researcher in the Horticultural Science Department of the University of Minnesota, will be presenting Cultivating Perennial Flax for Textiles. (His project is the one that has kept me busy for most of the summer.) And, on Friday, August 29th, Tom Michaels, also from the University of Minnesota, Department of Horticultural Science, will be presenting Hemp as a Textile Fiber in Minnesota. We are certainly loving the bast fibers this summer!

The Gale Woods Farm Flax is A-Buzzing

I visited the Gale Woods Farm linen flax this morning. Surprisingly, it is still in bloom, so you still have time to see the flowers. (Remember, mornings only—the flowers drop off by the afternoon.) 

There are many more post-bloom flower capsules on the stalks, so we are getting closer to the end of the flowering. A few capsules are just starting to turn brown, indicating the stalk is becoming mature. I still think the end of August will be our harvest time based on the number of stalks still in bloom and the fact that the majority of the stalks are still quite green at the base. 

This morning, the flowers were buzzing with both honeybees and bumblebees, along with smaller bees and flies. They were moving from flower to flower and very excitedly rubbing their bodies all around the stamens. 

I'm sorry for the blurry image. It was hard to get the bee in focus. It was so happy bumbling between flowers!

I was thrilled to see that the flowers are a hit with honeybees in particular. 

I wonder what flax flower honey tastes like?

I even saw a few bright red ladybugs 

(but the honeybee insisted on being the focus in this image—sorry, ladybug). 

These stalks are so rich with life when growing. And when they are mature and their time in the field is done, they give us lovely, strong fiber and elegant, comfortable fabric. Linen flax is truly a magical plant, from its growth all the way to its place in sustaining us in our lives as fiber and even food. The plant was named so appropriately by Linnaeus: Linum Usitatissimum—“the most useful” plant.
 
BTW… I just read a research paper on the fact that flax fiber dated to be 30,000 years old has been discovered in an archeological site in the foothills of the Caucasus in Georgia (the country, not the state)! The finding indicates that prehistoric hunter-gatherers were even using flax fibers for various uses in their survival. Flax is a remarkable, enduring legacy of this earth!

 

It's Full Bloom Time!

Don't wait! Visit the Gale Woods Farm linen flax crop this week to see the flowers before they're gone!

Summer is flying by, and I couldn't wait any longer to check on the Gale Woods Farm flax. It is in full bloom! I am so happy! Following my previous post, when I thought we were too early for the bloom, I am pleased to report that the crop has reached the full bloom stage at nearly 60 days. That's where it needs to be on nature's schedule for annual (linen) flax. (Can you see the butterfly visiting the flowers near the center left of the photo above? There were several of these flying from flower to flower this morning.)

Yes, the stalks are shorter than last year—about a foot shorter. But they are healthy. Some are showing a little yellowing at the base, indicating that their harvest date is approaching—in hopefully no less than 30 days—again, to be on nature's schedule.

Some capsules are forming from where the flowers have dropped off in the last week or so. Right on time!

As long as the extreme heat and humidity of the remaining summer don't affect the future maturity, we will have a nice crop of linen flax to pull at the end of August.

Although it was a very hot morning, it was also a gorgeous time to visit the field! Check out those lovely summer clouds!

If you come out to the farm to see the flowers this week, visit in the morning between 9 and noon, as the flower petals from the morning bloom will drop off after that time, and the stalks will appear fairly flowerless. You may catch a few butterflies visiting the flowers, too!

The Bloom is on the Flax!

An update below. . .

I went on a quick visit to Gale Woods Farm this morning to check on the linen flax plot. I hadn't been able to get out to do more weeding of the crop during the past week or so, although the plot looked fairly weed-free, at least among the stalks themselves, so that was good to see.

The stalks are averaging two feet in height. That is pretty much on schedule. Last year, this same variety of Avian linen flax reached forty inches or more in height at harvest time, which is expected to occur in another 50-60 days this year. Although...

Some stalks have already started to bloom! This is about three weeks earlier than expected. In addition, a few stalks appear to be turning yellow at their base. That is extremely early, since full maturity should be at 90–100 days, not 43 days, which it currently is. This has made me ponder the reasons behind the appearance of maturity. Perhaps the late sowing created conditions that forced the stalks to mature more quickly than normal or stressed the plants? It has also been very wet, hot, and humid for the past four weeks—not conditions that young linen flax stalks like. Another thought is that this particular part of the field did not have the nutrients that the linen flax prefers. Perhaps it is too nitrogen-rich? I am also investigating what was planted in this area last year to determine if the soil conditions were impacted by a previous crop.

UPDATE TO MY SPECULATIONS! My research memory was just jarred by Greg, the garden manager at Gale Woods Farm. He was wondering whether the long daylight at this time of year triggers flowering. Yes! That is most likely what is going on in the field with the "early" flowering! In Sweden, the flax comes into bloom during midsummer, when daylight is the longest. I had totally forgotten that fact. Thanks, Greg, for shaking loose my brain!

Based on my research into annual flax cultivation in Sweden, the implications could be that the farm flax will be shorter than normal due to the shorter season, making it potentially harder to process. However, it may also yield finer fiber when processed. We will see!

My potted flax is holding in there, and the stalks are now up to nearly three feet in height. These potted stalks are the same flax variety that the farm has in their field, but with the update I noted above, it is unlikely they will become as tall as these potted stalks.. 

The potted flax stalks are just starting to show signs of yellowing at the base, so they are on schedule to be harvested soon, although I have not seen much flowering. I wonder if that is because the pots are not tall enough to accommodate a stalk to full seed/flowering maturity. Without the mature seed pods, the linen that is produced could be negatively affected.

Flax growing is a never-ending adventure!