Southsea Green Harvesting

The flax from Southsea Green was harvested on 11th August 2023. This harvest was smaller with less flax having grown, due to birds eating the seeds and the plants being in the shade of a shed. Despite this, the flax that did grow was tall and healthy. 

The flax was harvested by southsea green garden volunteers Bea and Laura who supported in sowing, maintaining and watering the plant. 

The processed flax fibre came out as a silver colour which might have been due to the makeup of the soil as the garden is on an old salt marsh. 

When harvesting the flax the small leaves are removed keeping the flax seed heads attached. Once the plant has been left to dry before retting, the seed heads can be taken off by hand or with a wide comb and then saved to be pressed into linseed oil or kept for next years sowing. Like the flax seeds sown in this garden, the seed heads on the harvested plants were also eaten by the birds. Some flax has grown unexpectedly along southsea common, I think where the seeds have been distributed by the birds.

To volunteer at Southsea Green you can find more information here

Beautiful photographs by Karl Bailey

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