And so, the 2026 linen flax season ends with two plots put to bed 

Gale Woods Farm Crop

To conclude the seed-rippling details, we ended up with about six pounds of Avian variety linen flax seeds after winnowing! Since we sowed about 2 pounds, that is a nice increase in seed yield for future use. 

The Gale Woods flax stalks retted in seven days at an ambient greenhouse temperature of about 80 degrees. 

We pulled the stalks out of the tanks, laid them on greenhouse racks, and rinsed them while they lay on the racks. The drying time was longer than last year, probably because the humidity was quite high in the greenhouse since its plastic cover had recently been replaced, but not the rollers that allowed the cover to vent. I was concerned about mildew forming on the stalks, so fans were turned on to circulate the air, and the stalks were turned every day. After a week, the stalks were finally dry! 

A couple of interest groups came by to experience the next steps: mechanically breaking and processing the stalks into fiber. One group was a video team from Greener Pastures, Three Rivers Fibershed, and the Living Lineage: Linen in Scandinavian Folk Art and Modern Innovation artist project, who filmed me demonstrating the mechanical processing. The second group was part of a Three Rivers Park employee development day, where they spent a day learning about the farm’s activities. 

About 20 staff learned how to process the stalks into fiber, and we ended up with a good amount of fiber to use in upcoming park programs! Many hands make the work light! 

Next, we'll use the stalks in demonstrations I will be performing at the park district’s fall festival on the farm on Oct 3 and 4, and at a flax processing workshop I will be leading at Gale Woods Farm on Oct 24th. Consider signing up for that workshop soon! Space is limited!

 

My Crop from Riverbend Farm

My personal Avian variety linen flax crop has also concluded! 

I ended up threshing the seed capsules by stepping on them, which both crushed the capsules and released the seeds. I mainly chose this method because I had nerve pain in one shoulder, and pulling the stalks through a rake or tine hackle just wasn't going to be comfortable for me. It was a fairly efficient way to release the seeds, although I think it left more debris behind that I will need to winnow out. I still need to complete the winnowing process, so the total yield in pounds remains unknown.

I started retting my personal plot flax stalks on August 28^th. 

Because I have smaller cattle tanks, I used a series of four retting vats to complete retting on all stalks. The tanks fit in my driveway—the only space on my property with more direct sunlight. The total retting time was five days, although I thought I pulled these stalks a day too early. However, after drying them, they seemed OK. It is always hard to tell the exact timing on the ret! I suspect that since the weather was warm during this period and my tanks are smaller and made of a black poly material, they retted faster than the tanks at Gale Woods. Or perhaps being out in the open environment, with rainfall and more organic matter falling into the tank, gave the ret bacteria more oomph to break down the stalks? Another factor for the faster ret may be the fact I used garden pots that weren't completely clean as weights to hold down the stalks in the tanks. I have recently read that introducing some organic matter to the retting tanks helps the anaerobic bacteria multiply. Maybe...?

After retting, I rinsed the stalks and used a mash-up of clothes drying racks and a ladder as drying surfaces. The ladder worked very well since it allowed more air circulation around the stalks.

I have since packed up the stalks and stored them indoors and will be taking a few bags for my audience to enjoy at my keynote talk and flax processing demonstration at the upcoming annual Midwest Weavers Federation conference (October 2nd in Alexandria, Minnesota). 

 

To Conclude This Year of Growing

What a crazy busy linen flax growing year this has been! I must admit, I am physically ready for a rest. The quieter days of winter will be a blessing for this exhausted body! I can feel why crop farmers are happy to have a winter break! 

 

I hope to take time during the indoor season to spin and weave more linen, and I will continue to share the results of that here. 

 

Thanks for following me during this 2026 linen flax season! I hope you enjoyed the journey! 

Grow flax! Make linen!

Where Does the Time Go? The Harvest is Done! 

Apparently, time doesn’t go into updating the blog since I have a major catch-up to do here. The past two months have been overwhelmingly packed with activities and some health stuff I’ve been dealing with. The harvest wasn’t going to wait for me to recover, so I broke down my Viking resolve to do it all by myself and accepted help. (Once again, I am finding out that growing flax can become a personal learning journey on many levels!)

Gale Woods Farm Plot

This crop has been an odd one. The flowering continued way beyond the expected timeline. 

Harvesting is typically expected at 90 to 100 days post-emergence and 30 days after the final massive flower bloom, but with flowers still coming and the stalks still relatively green, I pushed the harvest to 105 days. In the end, this later harvest may affect stalk quality. They may be coarser when processed and perhaps ret faster than expected. My assumptions are based on research I’ve read on harvest timing, but the reality of the crop quality remains to be seen. 

We harvested a total of 158 bundles, with July 29^th as the final day of pulling the stalks. We hung them upside down on the garden fence (seed capsules facing down, which helps the seeds mature more fully) and left them to dry until August 12^th, when we took them down, 

moved them to the greenhouse, and removed the seed capsules (rippled the seeds). 

Summer garden staff, Kaela and Adrik, were my main garden helpers through this entire Gale Woods Farm journey. (A shout-out to Greg, the farm manager, and Hema, a summer intern, too!) Here, Kaela and Adrik are rippling the seed capsules off the stalks.

The final seed weight was 5.5 pounds, with many mature seeds, so it looks like we will have a healthy number of seeds for next year’s crop!

A week later, on August 20^th, we began the retting process. 

The ret tanks are filled with plain well water, and anaerobic bacteria will eventually start rotting away the woody stems.

The entire crop fit into two stock tanks! I will monitor the tanks throughout the next week and test the stalks periodically to determine when they have retted enough to release the fibers when processed, but not so much that they destroy the fiber line. It’s a skill learned and relearned each year, and it always feels like a guessing game!

My Personal Plot at Riverbend Farm

This crop seemed to be more “normal” in that the stalks did not have the same extended flowering that the Gale Woods plot had. Yes, some stalks were still flowering when the harvest date arrived, July 24^th, but overall, the stalk appearance was more in line with what is normally seen: about ¼ of the stalk yellowing and stalks holding a majority of brown seed capsules with seeds rattling around inside.

I had such a wonderful group of helpers at Riverbend, 11 in total, all thanks to Greg and Mary and their dedicated gardening friends who were excited to learn about this unique textile plant!  

An empty plot!

We harvested the crop in two hours! The harvest size was similar to Gale Woods, although these stalks were longer overall. I attribute that to a different soil type (more sandy/loamy than at Gale Woods) and the old “who knows” factor!

The entire crop filled my 17-year-old Rav4 (I love this car!). 

After hauling the stalks home, some of my family and I hung them on our backyard fence to dry. 

On August 14^th, we moved the stalks into our garage to ripple later, when I have more time to devote to the task—probably sometime in the next one to two weeks. 

Flax stalks can be stored indefinitely, either before or after rippling the seed capsules. It is best to remove the capsules fairly soon, though, to avoid critters finding the delicious seeds before you can gather and store them for next year’s crop! (The seeds are viable for about 5 years with careful storage, although they lose some viability each year.)

Come back here later to see the next steps: the continued flax retting at Gale Woods Farm and my personal capsule rippling adventure!

The Growth Continues

…updating the progress of the Gale Woods Farm and my personal flax plots.

Gale Woods Farm

On May 28th, I weeded the plot for the third, and, hopefully, final time. The weeds were few, although it still took an hour to go through the rows.

The Gale Woods stalk height was about 10 inches on May 28th. 

This should be the last major weeding, since from this point on the stalks should start to snuff out any major weeds in the rows. (Weeds will continue to grow between the rows, but even they should become fewer as the stalks grow, and not affect the success of the stalk growth in the rows.)

The Gale Woods plot is looking good 43 days after sowing!

Some stalks are shorter than others, and that is most likely because their depth at sowing was a little deeper. Other factors may be involved; nevertheless, I've found that the shorter stalks tend to keep up with the taller ones as summer moves on. (Some linen flax growers separate shorter stalks from the longer ones when harvesting, but I find that is a fussy task and not really necessary. The ultimate stalk length is usually within an acceptable range and yields no significant problem in the final fiber result.)

An overhead view of the rows.

The shadows were showing a rough depiction of an American flag!

The Gale Woods flax rows on June 2nd—48 days after sowing.

I went back out to the field on June 2nd. The weeding was inconsequential. Yay! With only the occasional pulling of thistles as the summer goes on, the weeding is DONE! The height of the tallest stalks had grown to 21 inches—a doubling of height in just six days! Exciting! 

I had to hold up the tallest stalks to measure them, since the wind had bent the tall ends.

On this same day, we had a few visitors to the plot. They included two weaving students who had just graduated from the Sätergläntan folk school in Sweden and were in town to see various fiber-related venues. The education coordinator at the American Swedish Institute (one of my teaching locations) thought they would enjoy seeing the farm plot, so she, the two students, and a fellow teacher at ASI arrived for a tour of the plot and the farm. It was a beautiful day! Other farm staff and a farm fiber volunteer joined us, making a convivial group of linen enthusiasts as we shared knowledge of linen flax between countries.

The Swedish weavers are on the left side of the image; Shai is wearing a red cap, and Malin is wearing black shorts.

Catching Up on My Personal Plot

On May 23rd, I weeded my personal "Riverbend plot" for the second time. 

The stalk height averaged 3.5 inches, slightly shorter than that of the Gale Woods plot during the same week. That was expected due to the later sowing date. 

Oh, the grasses are the bane of my existence out there! But I did quite a clean weeding of the rows, even though the field was SO muddy and the weeds were holding tight in the soggy soil. Exhausting work!

A worm "friend" joined me during the muddy weeding!

The rows at Riverbend on May 23rd, after a good weeding, 35 days after sowing.

I returned to the field on May 30th for the third weeding. The stalks have grown! They are now averaging a foot tall. 

The stalks were a foot tall on May 30th – a gain of 8.5 inches after only 7 days! That's an increase of over an inch a day!

This was a tougher weeding day, with warmer weather, more sun—and I hope my last deep weeding. The flax really likes the organic soil at Greg's place, and so do the weeds and grasses! This was a three-hour-plus weeding session! That's about an hour longer than previous weedings. I plan to go out again this weekend and hope the weeding effort will have lessened as the flax stalks have grown taller. Honestly, the weeding is starting to feel physically taxing as the days get warmer. With June beginning, the weather will undoubtedly continue to become warmer. Another reason to sow those flax seeds as early as possible, as we were able to do this year!

The Riverbend flax rows on May 30th—42 days after sowing.

The rainy weather of the previous week has been a benefit, although a few days had passed since the last good amount of rain and the field was starting to dry out. So at the end of my weeding session, I lightly watered the stalks. More rain is expected at the end of this week, which will be good timing for those growing stalks!

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.

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