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!
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.)
