It feels too soon to be writing this but, here we are! The poplars are raining their yellow leaves, mornings are full of dew and the quice is almost ready for harvest.

In the hopes of creating a new routine, here's the first seasonal update since this project was started in 2023! It has been an amazing 2 years of growth, for both me & my plants, experiencing grief, loss, community and overwhelm with a smattering of confidence, especially in this last season.

The most rewarding aspect has been the feeling of community, something I never knew & resolved to do without. However, it found me and embraced me with the warmest hug. To everyone who has connected with me & my plants this year, thank you. I now understand that resillience doesn't mean to charge ahead on my own, but to know who to lean on and when.

Nga mihi nui

~G

Linen flax

The 2024/25 growing season began mid-September with plowing of the linen field, an area that has been unfarmed for around 5 years. Multiple passes on the tractor did almost nothing (ok, maybe a smidge but we'll never know) to quell the onslaught of weeds. This didn't stop the linen from powering skywards! Thanks to the deluge of rain we received over Christmas, the linen grew fantastically with no input from me.

For those interested in the numbers, I planted on the 11th Nov '24, approx 20kg of seed at a desity of 2,200 seed p/m2 offering roughly 1,600m2 of the oilseed cultivar of linseed supplied by Midlands seeds.

We begun harvest as soon as day 79! After a few days of heavy rain, the weeds couldn't hold themselves & the linen up any loger, so we picked up the fallen soldiers and laid them to dry in the drying shed. Thus began our month-long harvest session!

Thanks to a multitude of helpers, we've harvested more this year than we managed last year & I'm so grateful!! Thank you Margot, Ari, Bern, Alicia, Steven, Sam, Jasper, Bernice, Bebe & Mary for your efforts!

The crop is hanging beautifully in the drying shed, a sight to behold!

Dye plants

This year I separated the dye plants into their own beds & even spaced out the indigo seedlings, which it didn't respond to very well! Turns out they liked the closer spacing for taller plants with more vegetation. Noted! However, burying the lower nodes & doing multiple smaller harvests helped to get the plants to bush out.

The bed of marigold went bonkers, as to be expected, and we've managed so many harvests off this crop we lost count. It was also a favourite for harvesting when visitors came, not only because of the abundance, but also the satisfying "pop" as the flower heads are plucked. It's now providing beautifully ripe seed-heads so we're at the end of marigold season now.

Two-toned coreopsis on the other hand was beautiful, favored by the wee ones, but difficult and slow to harvest. I also decided to see what the plants would do without added support and boy, was that a mistake! Next time I'll surely provide string guides for the delicate stems to lean against. I've also managed to harvest a generous amount of seeds from this crop.

The weld is still growing lush! So luch that one helper (I won't name names) got so excited that she begun harvesting entire plants! Not to worry, I managed to stop her before too many were pulled out & now we have plenty of plant material drying in the drying shed.

I also experimented with cosmos, scabiosa black knight and rudbeckia this year. They all got absolutely smothered in weeds but are still growing well despite the wool mulch Ari & I collected and spread around. I must recommend the scabiosa for your dye garden if you haven't planted it already! The bumble bees and admiral butterflies love fosiking the numerous flowers for nectar & pollen.

What next?

I've recently sent my solid wood mangle in to an engineer who has been tasked to rout teeth into the rollers to create a flax break for me. A costly job but one that will speed my hand-scale production up while giving my body some reprive!

While I wait for this job to get done, I'll offer the remaining linen flax to the soil as a boost of organic matter before planting a winter cover crop to snuff out weed growth. This in turn should provide some lovely soil for next seasons growers to enjoy.

This is also my last season growing at the BHU Organic College. It'll be sad to say goodbye to the calm generosity of the farm but we must create space for others to make their mark.

Next season I'll be moving to a small plot in Tai Tapu, farming alongside Bear and Midgarden, a hot pepper growing entity that has the coolect community of helpers & medievil enthusiasts! I owe my fibre seed and flax processing knowledge to this group of people and I'm really looking forward to this next chapter.

Thank you all for being here & supporting this work! I'm really positive about how far we have come in such a short amount of time. We're doing some great things together!

Please do reach out if you have something to offer, words of wisdom or if you'd just like to pop in and say Hi! The farm gate is very much open to visitors, just connect & make a time :)

Until next time,

~Gina