Planting my first flax bed!

Last summer, I read, and was electrified by, Raven Ranson's Homegrown Linen book while I was out camping.

So I started putting together a grex of flax seeds. I first got a small portion of light and dark seeds from my local grocery co-op. Then I ordered two different four-ounce packs of fiber flax seeds from a preservation farm in Pennsylvania. I intended to keep finding more and have more variety, but lost the thread of the project.

Today, I broadcast about 3/4 of the flax that I'd assembled. I wasn't as careful to provide the best growing conditions as recommended in the book, but I did it more in keeping with how I garden in general -- I cleared some weeds, but not every last little one, and raked the surface a bit, then broadcast the seed and raked a little more, and now that patch is under the sprinkler -- I'm giving it a good soaking. We'll see what happens.

Assuming this doesn't fail miserably, I'll update the thread with growing details and then then the journey into fiber production.

While we wait for the progress reports, this might be interesting reading:-
https://spinoffmagazine.com/linen-legacy-tracing-the-history-of-flax-and-its-enduring-impact/
link at the end to a flax processing supplier in the UK.

So far so good -- but I think my broadcasting must have been much thicker than it seemed at the time. That might result in a poorer yield, but I guess we'll see. Maybe it'll just make them fight for sunlight and grow leggy.

Looks like flax to me. How exciting!
I'm trying growing flax for the first time this year too. I just got fibre flax seeds of one variety. They seem to be a bit difficult to get hold of in the UK. I gather the ones grown for seed aren't as good for fibre as they are more branched. I expect your seedlings will naturally crowd each other and stretch for the light in time. Mine were sown a little earlier and are about 2 inches tall now.

Excited to see how this goes! I've grown a bit of cotton, but flax is still on my bucket list.

If you ever happen to be in Northern Ireland, I highly recommend the Irish Linen museum. It takes you through the whole history of linen production, from ancient Egypt through the industrial era. It's not a big museum but the exhibits are well done, and the staff are super knowledgeable and great fun to nerd out with about fiber. It was also the only time I've gotten to see a jacquard loom in action.

Flax bed looking great - my understanding is that the closer the planting, the better as it makes the plants grow tall and straight, a great help when it comes to the processing part.

Very nice & helpful information for planting flax.

I've also read that different varieties either make big seeds or good fiber. I have done some fiber art with linen and wish I had a sunny space to grow flax. It is such a healthy alternative to so many other fabrics, and most likely part of my heritage going back. I hope more Americans will experiment with growing it here. It seems like most linen comes from northern Europe and Russia now.

Lorelle Becton wrote: wish I had a sunny space to grow flax.

I suggest you give it a try. My understanding is that it prefers slightly cooler, damp conditions, so if your area is hot it may actually do better in the shade! If it does well for me (first time growing it this year) then I think it will be OK in most areas in shade.

Sorry, this is not my first flax. But this is the first time I grow it in such a 'neat' way :-)
Other years I was not that organised ...
The seeds for fiber flax I got from my sister, who grows little patches of fiber flax too. She officially joined the challenge of 1 m2 flax last year, organised by Crafts Council Netherlands. She shared her harvested seeds with me.

Sewing flax traditionally happens on the 100th day of the year (here in the Netherlands). I don't want the birds to eat the seeds, so I put a net over them. (Photo made April 29th 2025)


When little seedlings started growing I removed the net.


It has grown so hard! And now it flowers! In reality the flowers a more Blue, difficult to get that colour on photo. (photo made today, June 16th 2025)

Lorelle Becton wrote:I've also read that different varieties either make big seeds or good fiber. I have done some fiber art with linen and wish I had a sunny space to grow flax. It is such a healthy alternative to so many other fabrics, and most likely part of my heritage going back. I hope more Americans will experiment with growing it here. It seems like most linen comes from northern Europe and Russia now.

I agree: there are different varieties (cultivars). The flax grown for seeds is not so good for fiber, because it's more branched. For fiber one thin long stalk is prefered ('leggy').
In Belgium and the North of France flax for linen is still grown, but not on the large scale as it was in the past. In the Netherlands it was totally disappeared, but Crafts Council Netherlands and other organisations are doing their best to get it back (not only in gardens, but also in larger fields).
Most linen indeed now comes from Eastern European countries, like Poland and Russia. Or it comes from China (the Chinese import flax from different countries and they make linen of it, as far as I know).

Just a grow-report three weeks after my last one…

My flax is almost ready!

photo June 30, early morning

Inge, your plants are straight and tall as they should.  I grew some last year and they kept on blooming and refused to die. I will give it another try.

May Lotito wrote:Inge, your plants are straight and tall as they should.  I grew some last year and they kept on blooming and refused to die. I will give it another try.

Did you have the right seeds? If you sow 'linseed', you'll get those branched plants with many flowers, and many seeds (they are meant to produce seeds). My flax is from seeds for fiber flax.

This open-source document is a little dated, but may have some good information regarding oilseed vs fiber flax and issues with growing it.  Mostly geared towards the larger oilseed industry at this point, the information on growing the crop will be relevant for the those growing the fiber crop as well.

https://www.library.nd.gov/statedocs/NDSUExtensionService/a1038flaxproductionnd20161013.pdf

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:
Did you have the right seeds? If you sow 'linseed', you'll get those branched plants with many flowers, and many seeds (they are meant to produce seeds). My flax is from seeds for fiber flax.

No specification so I guess it's regular oilseed. I probably made the mistake by feeding them continuously. Now it occurs to me that the difference between the fiber and oilseed flax looks analogous to that of the determinate vs indeterminate crops.

Today I harvested my Flax!

Neat! And a good reminder to update the thread. It looks like mine are averaging ~22” tall and I have two pretty blue flowers.

(An aside -- I don't love calling that color "blue" but every time I think of a more correct color, it's the name of some other flower (lavender, periwinkle, lilac) which seems weird.)

Great progress . . . now for the retting operation?
It's making me want to try, but the forward forecast for rain isn't promising.

It looks like mine are a long way behind Inge's, and still a little in front of Christopher's - mine are flowering nicely! They definitely are a fibre variety with just a few flowers at the tops of the stems. Inge (or anyone), I'm wanting to save the seed so I can grow more next year. Do they tend to shed quickly, or can I thresh the seed out after harvesting? I guess I'm still a few weeks away from that stage yet.

Nancy Reading wrote:It looks like mine are a long way behind Inge's, and still a little in front of Christopher's - mine are flowering nicely! They definitely are a fibre variety with just a few flowers at the tops of the stems. Inge (or anyone), I'm wanting to save the seed so I can grow more next year. Do they tend to shed quickly, or can I thresh the seed out after harvesting? I guess I'm still a few weeks away from that stage yet.

My experience is that they don't shed the seeds. You need to tresh the seeds out.

Christopher Weeks wrote:... I have two pretty blue flowers.

(An aside -- I don't love calling that color "blue" but every time I think of a more correct color, it's the name of some other flower (lavender, periwinkle, lilac) which seems weird.)

Don't you call that blue? The way I see it this is exactly the colour of blue skies. But maybe the sky has a different colour here than where you live. Or maybe your flax has a different colour ...
All 'colours of flowers' you mention here are more purple/lilac than the blue of my flax flowers.

Oh good - that will make it a lot easier!

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:
Don't you call that blue? The way I see it this is exactly the colour of blue skies. But maybe the sky has a different colour here than where you live. Or maybe your flax has a different colour ...

That flax flower definitely has some red in the range of colours across it, not just blue, to my eye (in red-blue-yellow primary colour terms).  Of course, the colour of the sky can be reddish under various circumstances too.

So, I see a range of light purples with a little light blue on my screen.

Jill Dyer wrote:Great progress . . . now for the retting operation?....

No, I don't do retting. My method for processing flax is different.

I demonstrate prehistorical plant fiber processing at an open air museum (Hunebedcentrum Borger, the Netherlands). Getting the (linen) fibers out of the flax involves: bashing the dry stalks (in small bundles) with a stone (or a heavy piece of wood), breaking and crashing them so the fibers come loose and scraping with a flint knife. When I have the fibers I twist and twine them into cordage.

To see more on prehistoric techniques watch Sally Pointer's Youtube channel. I learned a lot from her videos!

I'm not doing flax, but am very glad to hear there's a viable, not water-intensive way to process it!

Carla Burke wrote:I'm not doing flax, but am very glad to hear there's a viable, not water-intensive way to process it!

It doesn't take any water. But it takes a lot of time!

Well, I’m getting on to thinking about the harvest. I don’t think it’s quite time yet. And I think I’m going to lean things in favor of seed production this year for a couple of reasons: I want to develop my own grex or landrace, and my plants are really short anyway, so they're never going to be great linen.

The very tallest specimen I found is 44 inches but in general, they are more like 2 1/2 feet to 3 feet tall. I was expecting more like four or 5 feet…?

Christopher Weeks wrote:Well, I’m getting on to thinking about the harvest. I don’t think it’s quite time yet. And I think I’m going to lean things in favor of seed production this year for a couple of reasons: I want to develop my own grex or landrace, and my plants are really short anyway, so they're never going to be great linen.

The very tallest specimen I found is 44 inches but in general, they are more like 2 1/2 feet to 3 feet tall. I was expecting more like four or 5 feet…?

I think 3 feet is not bad. The most important is that there's one stalk, without any branching.

It's a little hard to tell. The branching ones dominate the field of vision. I found some that are just a straight single shoot, but lots that have 4-6 tops, and lots that have 12-20? tops. This will be easier to be more systematic about once I'm pulling them.

So these seeds intended for fiber production can still grow bushy like mine. I am wondering if it has to do with the soil. Many plants are grown best in specific regions and change outside of the range. My plants tend to be very branchy, I wasn't able to use my bamboo or willow without manually rubbing buds off early in the season. This year I got a glimpse of what might be related to controlling the branch architecture, maybe through affecting auxin gradient and will look into that further next year.

Here are my black seed Sunflowers that I think analogous to flax in term of flowering pattern.