Category: growing

We have had a good amount of rain over the past couple weeks, interspersed with some stunningly gorgeous sunshine. This is flax’s favorite weather (unlike the 90 degrees, dry as a bone weather we had mid-April, which is not). Here’s how it was looking as of May 18th and 19th, last Friday and Saturday.

Above is the v.n.s. at Small Ones Farm May 18, about four inches high.

Above is the v.n.s. at Amethyst Farm May 19, about 5 inches high.

Above is the v.n.s. at Amethyst Brook May 18, about 4 and a half inches high.

Above is Marylin at Amethyst Brook May 18, about six inches high.

Above is Evelin at Small Ones Farm May 18, three and three quarters of an inch high.

Above is Evelin at Amethyst Farm May 19, between 6 and 7 inches.

Above is Evelin at Amethyst Brook May 18, between 5 and 6 inches.

Finally, we reach the end of the flax grid photos. Phew. In future I think a 3’x3′ grid will be enough, or maybe just three one-foot sample squares out of each bed. 4’x4′ was overkill. Anyway, it’s done now. In the time since these photos were taken (April 29th and 30th) the plants have shot up. They are now feathery and about 5 or 6 inches high, and lovely. But here was how the Evelin looked at our community garden, back on April 30th.

Here are the photos of Marylin at Amethyst Brook where we have our community garden plot. They were taken on April 30th. The Marylin growth is the most lush of all the plots, which means it had the best germination rate. It is also the only treated seed variety I grew. I think the treatment is an antifungal agent to prevent rotting the damp soils of early spring. We did not have damp soils this spring. We had dry soils. It was 90 degrees the day after I planted in mid-April. So, I am not sure why the treatment would have given these seeds an advantage, and maybe that’s not really what’s going on. Anyway, here they are:

Without much further ado, here are the photos of the v.n.s. grid from Amethyst Farm. The date on these is April 30th. Read more about the grid set-up here.

Earlier today I was searching the web for interesting tid-bits about Evelin to share, to spice up all these admittedly monotonous photos. I came across Bast and Other Plant Fibers by Robert R. Franck (CRC Press, 2005). Franck lists Evelin as one of 31 fiber flax cultivars approved for use in Europe as of 2002. I didn’t get far enough to figure out why these 31 were approved in particular, or what the differences were between them. A research task for another day. Among other things, I learned that I’ve been spelling the variety “Marilyn” incorrectly. It is actually spelled Marylin, even though I thought I had read that it’s named after Marilyn Monroe. While it merits being on the list, for whatever reason, Evelin was not among the most popular varieties grown in western Europe in 2002. That honor went to four other varieties: Agatha, Hermes, Marylin, and Diane.

I had to laugh at one comment the author made. In outlining the reasons for low productivity in certain countries, he cites one reason as being “the innate conservatism of peasant agriculture.” I think I must fall into that category.

Here are the photos of Evelin growing at Amethyst Farm in Amherst, MA. As before, each square is a foot square, and the full grid is 4 feet square. The images appear in order, numbered from 1 to 16 across the grid from bottom left corner to top right. See my original post for more info on this set-up.

Here are the photos of the “variety not specified” (v.n.s.) flax at Small Ones Farm in South Amherst on April 29th. They are posted in order from square 1 to square 16 in the grid. For an explanation of the grid numbering system, and what these flax grids are all about, see my last post, “Belated Photos of Flax Grids: Evelin at Small Ones Farm.”

Above is a photo showing the height of the vns seedlings on April 29th at Small Ones Farm.

 

Back on Sunday April 29th and Monday April 30th I set up one-foot-square grids in my flax beds. I used sticks to stake out the one-foot increments, and flagging tape to outline the edges. They are not perfectly square, but it’ll do. At each plot (Small Ones Farm, Amethyst Farm, and the community garden at Amethyst Brook) I used a different color flagging tape for each variety, but didn’t plan ahead enough to use the same color for each variety at each place. That would have been handy, but too late now. As you might suspect, it is hard to tell from a photo of little green plants just exactly which variety of seed or section of a plot I am looking at. So, I thought the color coding would help differentiate photos back at home when I’ve downloaded them onto the computer and am figuring out which is which. I also wrote labels on the flagging tape, but it twists around sometimes so they aren’t clear in every photo. Each grid is four feet square (the width of the bed, and four feet in length), divided into 16 sections. I took a photo of each section. I have a total of 7 beds, which multiplied by 16 is a lot of photos of little green plants. One hundred and twelve, to be exact. That is too many for one post. It actually has crossed my mind that perhaps not everyone will be interested in looking at 112 photos of flax. But in the interests of documenting this project, I’ve decided to post them all, divided between several posts.

I set up the grids because I wanted a more quantifiable way to measure the germination rates of the different seed varieties, and to count how many plants were growing in each square foot. Mostly what this exercise taught me is that my sowing technique is terrible. I have clumps and bare patches in an extremely uneven pattern. Sigh. Raking did not help at all, so I will omit that step in future. In fact I think many of the ridges where there is a density of plants were created by the edge of the rake. So, there is a lot more to learn about that step of the process. Honestly, I think this season was my worst broadcasting job ever, but then again I have never scrutinized every step of the process so closely.

This post features the variety Evelin (an untreated variety from Richters in Canada) planted at Small Ones Farm in South Amherst. The photos were taken April 29th, and are labeled with the variety, the location, and a number 1 to 16. The squares in the grid are numbered from left to right, starting in the row on the near side of the bed and moving to the back. That is,1 is in the bottom left hand corner, and 16 is in the top right corner. They are posted in order from 1 to 16.

Above is an overview of the bed of Evelin, and below is a photo showing the height of the plants on April 29th (14 days after planting).

 

Well, apparently I have to include a lot of exclamation points in this flax growing experiment. I will cut that out. But it’s so exciting!

The flax began emerging on Friday April 20th. The first two to emerge were the Evelin at Amethyst Farm and the Marilyn at our community garden. That’s five days to germinate. By the next day, Saturday April 21st, everything was up everywhere. That’s six days. Not bad.

Here’s the progress as of yesterday, Tuesday April 24th (the 9th day since planting). My sense is that the generic variety did not have a very good germination rate. I will try to figure out an accurate way to estimate or calculate that, but the growth of the v.n.s. seedlings looks much more sparse than the other two. Another possibility is that the golden v.n.s. seeds on average weighed more than the brown seeded varieties, so that I actually planted fewer golden seeds even though the amount weighed the same. Maybe I should have done it by volume rather than weight. I will try to figure this out, also.

Here is an overview of part of the v.n.s. bed at Small Ones Farm, and below that, a close-up of a bald spot. To some extent, of course, bald spots are my fault for not sowing evenly.

However, I think it is also because a lot of seeds just didn’t germinate. Here’s a closeup of v.n.s. seedlings at Small Ones Farm.

Below is an over-view of part of the Evelin bed at Small Ones Farm. Below that, you can see there were also bald spots in the Evelin, but I don’t think they were as big.

And here’s a close-up of the Evelin at Small Ones Farm.

Moving on to Amethyst Farm, here is the v.n.s. at a distance, closer (yeah, not much there), and very close:

Here’s the Evelin at Amethyst Farm, overview, then closer, then a close-up:

And at our community garden, the v.n.s. (the holes are dog prints):

Here’s the Evelin at the community garden:

And here is the Marilyn (the only treated seed I planted) at the community garden:

And that is the flax update. Stay tuned for future flax-growing excitement featuring visual aids such as rulers and a string grid (maybe 6 by 6 square inches) to count plant density. Woo hoo!