Crossing Fingers

This spring has proven to be a very cold one. I am hoping that linen flax has the stamina of the woodland ephemerals, which are holding their own in my back woods, even with nighttime temperatures in the near-to-freezing level. Linen flax seedlings are known to be able to handle a frost, and even a freeze, although only for a short amount of time (a few hours).

 The Gale Woods Farm linen flax seedlings on April 28th.

 A closer look at the Gale Woods Farm linen flax seedlings five days later—May 2nd.

Gale Woods Farm Plot

The Gale Woods Farm crop has seen temperatures that produce a frost overnight. The first night of these temperatures seemed to not affect the little seedlings that began to emerge on April 28^th, 12 days after sowing. The emergence has been slow (7–10 days is typical), which makes me think the colder evenings and days are playing a factor in their growth pace. They are smart little seedlings! Even five days later, they are still at about the same height. That's OK. Take your time little seedlings! Warmer days and nights are coming!

Riverbend Farm Plot

The crop at Greg’s Riverbend Farm, which, as my previous post described, was planted later, and started to emerge around the first of May—again, 12 days after sowing. I haven’t gone out to Greg's place yet to note the progress. I truly hope it is making a very slow emergence since there have been some quite low temperatures in his location, and a slow emergence should protect the seedlings from freeze damage. I say this with hope in my eyes. Perhaps the false hope that farmers feel when there might be a real danger of a crop failure. For me, a crop failure will affect my ability to use my own flax stalks for teaching and demonstrations. That’s not as problematic as a linen crop failure in past centuries, where a crop failure meant a survival issue—both economically and physically—but I will personally feel the loss! Crossing fingers I can still rely on the Bloodroot plant to tell me when true spring has begun in this area! (see my previous post) Don't fail me now, Bloodroot!

If the seedlings make it through this difficult time, we will also need more rain. It is already terribly dry in the fields! Oh, this is a real-life example of the challenges and joys of what it means to live around the whims of nature!

And so it begins… 

Another Year of Linen Flax!

No, this is NOT Flax! It is Bloodroot—an early sign of Spring!

The Bloodroot is blooming, and that means, for those of us in the roughly 45-degree N latitude and 93 W longitude (the general Twin Cities area of Minnesota), it’s time to sow linen flax! 

2026 is a Growing Year!

This year, I am excited to announce that I am looking forward to two plots of linen flax! One is the third year of an educational plot at Gale Woods Farm, and the second is, finally, my own plot. 

For a few years, I have been jonesing for a large linen flax plot of my own. The time has come! From now until the end of 2026, I will be blogging about the two adventures. (Of course, Mother Nature will have something to say about this, but I am going to remain optimistic that this will be a great year for hearty and healthy crops.)

 

The Gale Woods Linen Flax Plot

On April 16th, we sowed the 2026 linen flax crop at Gale Woods Farm! (Gale Woods Farm is the Three Rivers Park District educational farm in Minnetrista, Minnesota, which agreed to have another crop this year. Prior crops at the farm have been the main subject of my past two years of linen flax blogs.) 

 

Just like last year, this year’s crop was sown by grain-drilling. However, this year the rows were sown with tighter spacing between them than last year. My hope is that the tighter spacing will reduce opportunities for weed growth and better support individual stalks. Grain drilling the seed is a reliable method of sowing since each row is straight, or should be, and planted at a similar depth, or should be. (The other method is broadcasting the seed—throwing them on the soil and raking them in—which we did the first year, and is a very good way to sow linen flax too. It does become a little more difficult to weed a broadcasted plot, though. Plus, the stalks can come up at different rates due to the variability of the sown depth when raking them in.)

The Gale Woods Farm plot is in the CSA garden, which is behind the fence to the right of the farm entrance. We sowed it next to the apple orchard.

 

Last year’s crop at Gale Woods Farm was sown as a last-minute task because of a very wet spring, so I was unable to watch the sowing process. But this year, I had a heads-up on the task and was able to document it. The equipment that the Gale Woods farm manager, Greg, used came from his own farm. It was a 100+-year-old grain drill that even had a hook-up for attaching horses to pull it across a field! These days, a small utility vehicle takes the place of a horse! 

This vintage grain drill was used to sow the flax at Gale Woods Farm.

 

A modern-day horse!

We followed the guide on the drill for “flax” sowing, although the flax indicated on the equipment was probably seed flax, not linen flax, which was mostly sown by hand-broadcasting 100+ years ago. 

 

The drill operates with disks that open the soil to a certain depth (1 inch in the case of linen flax), and cups above the disks distribute the seeds somewhat evenly behind the rows that the disks have opened.

Compartments in the grain drill hold the seed.

Cups funnel the seeds to hoses that drop the seeds onto the ground behind the channels the discs have opened in the soil.

Here's a video of the grain drill sowing the linen flax seeds at Gale Woods Farm:

The variety we planted was the same as the previous two years: Avian. This year’s seeds came from the rippled seeds of last year’s crop. However, last year’s crop offered a meager amount of mature seed (growing conditions in 2025 were not ideal), and since the availability of new seed was limited (thanks to tariffs that have made seed acquisition more difficult), we could only sow about 100 lineal feet this year (a little less than one pound of seed), versus the previous 125 lineal feet. The width is the same as the previous two years: 4 feet. That is the traditional width for a linen flax crop since it eases hand weeding.

The Gale Woods Farm plot after sowing the seeds. 

Now we wait for the babies to rise up!

A Personal Plot!

Well, it’s not exactly personal, but a plot in which I will have the freedom to do what I wish with the stalks—which in my case, will be to use them for teaching flax processing and spinning workshops, and doing flax processing demonstrations for various groups—plus, for my own further experimentation into growing linen flax in Minnesota. This year, I have a handful of opportunities to teach linen processing and spinning, and at least three personal (Saga Hill Studio) demonstrations/presentations on flax processing. My website, SagaHill.com, will have information about those events when I have more to share.

 

Growing Linen Flax When You Don’t Have a Field

My home is set in the woods. It’s not a good setting for a crop that requires a lot of sun! So, for the past few years, my challenge has been to find a field in which to make my personal flax field dream a reality. It was through the farm manager at Gale Woods Farm that I found the perfect location, only about 25 minutes away from where I live! It is at a former CSA farm on the west side of Delano, Minnesota. In fact, it is Greg's farm, the Gale Woods Farm manager! When I asked him if he knew of anyone in his vicinity who might have a section of a plowed field that I could use for a linen flax crop, he offered me slightly over 100 lineal feet in his experimental field. 

Here is Greg preparing his grain drill for sowing the plot on his farm.

Greg, being a former mechanical engineer, has a variety of old farm equipment that he’s rigged up to work just fine for any type of field sowing. And, being a man with an inquisitive mind, he and his wife, Mary, were game to open their field to a linen flax adventure. (They told me about other adventurous crops that they have been and are involved with. Perhaps I can share more about those as the growing season continues.) So, on April 19th, we were in the field planting one pound of my Avian linen flax seed variety that I purchased last fall from Landis Valley Heritage Museum (a living museum and linen flax source in Pennsylvania)! The plot length is a bit over 100 feet. Oh, it was a blustery, cold, albeit sunny, day! The clouds were gloriously cumulous, but noses were running. No matter. The seed is in place, and now we wait for Mother Nature to do her job.

Here's a video of the grain drill sowing process at Greg's farm:

 

What’s Next

The weather is warming up nicely for the emergence of both plots in at least a couple of weeks, if not sooner. We could use some rain, though, since the fields are depleting moisture from the winter snowmelt with the warm temperatures we are currently experiencing.

 

As soon as we see about 2 inches of seedling growth, for both plots, the first weeding will need to take place. If the fields are fairly free of weeds, there should be only about 2-3 weeks in total when occasional weeding will be needed. Then, only a few visits should be needed to check the weeds and stalk condition. Linen flax is quite a trouble-free crop! It just needs some moisture, not-too-hot conditions (hence the early sowing date), and people to admire the flowers' beauty (in about 60 days, around midsummer). But more on that later.