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The quest for my own flax continues

May 6, 2008 in Fibre, horticulture by Sarah

I started digging the garden today in my quest for my own home grown flax:

I am quite tired now. I have spent practically my entire adult life living in apartments and am wimpy about digging. I figure that if I dig about this much every day left this week, I will be ready to plant on the weekend.

It is not as hard as I anticipated. I grew up on glacial till, and there are more rocks in that dirt than you can shake a stick at. It might have given me a distorted view of how hard gardening is.

I plan on going to my local yarn store and looking at spinning wheels etc. on the weekend. It’s all coming together.

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May 6, 2008 at 11:10 pm

rebecca caisse

Rent a rototiller, girl. That looks like way too much work.

May 7, 2008 at 7:14 am

Sarah

No, no, no, the digging makes it good. It’s what I am doing instead of going to the gym. And the people in the Neolithic didn’t have rototillers — it’s all part of the process.

Sarah

May 7, 2008 at 10:15 am

Mike

Wow. Your efforts to grow flax are pretty cool.

Sounds like you have researched the process on-line. If you have additional questions, I’d recommend contacting John Wunder. He’s a 70-something, retired farmer who started growing flax again because of the nutrional value of the seeds. You can find his contact information at http://www.wunderflax.wordpress.com.

And I hope you at the flax seeds. It really is good for you health.

May 7, 2008 at 8:42 pm

Sarah

Mike,

Thank you for the referral, I will look at the blog you suggest and contact John if I have any questions. Actually I already do eat flax seeds. I grind them in my old coffee grinder and throw them in my oatmeal or granola mostly.

The only problem I anticipate is how and where to thresh the flax to get the seed. It’s not really something you could do in the house or on the ground. Maybe I should lay down a sheet or something. Oh well, I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

Sarah