The 14 day weather forecast http://www.theweathernetwork.com/fourteenday/cabc0308?extcmp=sem_web_googleen_text&cities-en&gclid=CKH4l6qEzbYCFYF7QgodSUYAuQ shows the daily high crawling up slowly towards the end of the month, and no sign of frost.
However, as we can all feel, it's still pretty cold and the soil is even colder (and wet!) - go put your hands in some out there and you'll see what I mean. Seed sowed into that will just rot before germinating.
We'll need a good few warm and sunny days to heat the soil and dry it out some, but of course with the clearer weather comes clear nights and a high risk of overnight frost.
So I'll keep you posted, but I personally won't be planting any flax before the the last few days of the month based on this forecast.
Penny
Connecting weavers with nature in the city.
Showing posts with label sowing flax. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sowing flax. Show all posts
Monday, April 15, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Flax, terroir, homogeneity and globalisation
Someone who visited the Urban Weaver one evening, described a locally sourced fibre and dye sweater as having 'terroir'.
'Terroir', roughly translated and taken away from its use in describing wine, means 'of the place' or 'of the land'. She explained that she meant the mixture of localy sourced fibres, dyed using plants from Stanley Park made the garment uniquely 'of the land' where it came from and was being worn.
The availability of cheap oil and its evil spawn, globalisation, has meant the regionality that used to define our communities and places, no longer exists. It has made available to us the riches and rarities of the world's far flung places that were once only the priviledge of the wealthiest. How many suits did your great grandfather own? Unless he was rich, probably only one or two, because sourcing the fibre/fabric/labour to make them was expensive. Now we buy and throw away cheap cashmere sweaters with abandon, in willful ignorance of hard work and raw conditions it takes to raise, process and make that luxury fibre.
Now that we can have the things that were once only for the rich (*alert: We are the rich. According to the UN we are the 12th richest country out of 193 of the world. The country producing cashmere is 163rd, and the one processing it is 93rd) nothing is special anymore. We rich countries can source anything we want. Result? We all dress in the same stuff, and find ourselves very boring to look at.
We must find ourselves boring to look at because we waste even more oil travelling to poor countries to look at their regional dress. They take pride in wearing clothes that distinguish them from other countries, even from other villages. We on this continent just wear the same stuff that we all source from a handful of big box retailers. We have no regional dress, no regional pride in our clothing. Our clothing has no terroir. We look uniformly boring.
You can reclaim that regionality and produce unique clothing by growing and processing local flax. The Urban Weaver has everything you need to do that for free. We have seed for you, will soon have the equipment for you to process it into flax, and will teach you to spin, weave and dye it. The oil use will be tiny, the carbon footprint (unless you drive to the field house) small, and no one will have been exploited in the production of your clothing.
There's still a few weeks to join in. Why not exert your uniqueness and regional pride - your terroir?
Penny
'Terroir', roughly translated and taken away from its use in describing wine, means 'of the place' or 'of the land'. She explained that she meant the mixture of localy sourced fibres, dyed using plants from Stanley Park made the garment uniquely 'of the land' where it came from and was being worn.
The availability of cheap oil and its evil spawn, globalisation, has meant the regionality that used to define our communities and places, no longer exists. It has made available to us the riches and rarities of the world's far flung places that were once only the priviledge of the wealthiest. How many suits did your great grandfather own? Unless he was rich, probably only one or two, because sourcing the fibre/fabric/labour to make them was expensive. Now we buy and throw away cheap cashmere sweaters with abandon, in willful ignorance of hard work and raw conditions it takes to raise, process and make that luxury fibre.
Now that we can have the things that were once only for the rich (*alert: We are the rich. According to the UN we are the 12th richest country out of 193 of the world. The country producing cashmere is 163rd, and the one processing it is 93rd) nothing is special anymore. We rich countries can source anything we want. Result? We all dress in the same stuff, and find ourselves very boring to look at.
We must find ourselves boring to look at because we waste even more oil travelling to poor countries to look at their regional dress. They take pride in wearing clothes that distinguish them from other countries, even from other villages. We on this continent just wear the same stuff that we all source from a handful of big box retailers. We have no regional dress, no regional pride in our clothing. Our clothing has no terroir. We look uniformly boring.
You can reclaim that regionality and produce unique clothing by growing and processing local flax. The Urban Weaver has everything you need to do that for free. We have seed for you, will soon have the equipment for you to process it into flax, and will teach you to spin, weave and dye it. The oil use will be tiny, the carbon footprint (unless you drive to the field house) small, and no one will have been exploited in the production of your clothing.
There's still a few weeks to join in. Why not exert your uniqueness and regional pride - your terroir?
Penny
Sunday, March 24, 2013
American measurements and flax seed planting.
Just organising myself to weigh out the Elektra seed for people who are doing a grow-along - don't get enthusiastic for planting though, as the soil isn't warm enough for sowing yet!
Biolin, being the good Canadians they are sell their seed by the Kg and give planting rates as 12g per square metre. Everyone who is doing a grow along seems to measure their plot in feet. Why is that?
Is that because we actually think 12 inches = 1 foot, 5280 feet = 1 mile is easier than our own metric system?
How come we measure the temperature in the garden in degrees Centigrade, but the temperature in our ovens in degrees Farenheit?
Is it because we're increasingly becoming American in our ways?
Do we really want to be one with the only country on the planet still using a system based on the arm length of Henry I a thousand years ago?
How come we measure the distances on our roads in Km and the distances in our gardens in feet?
Do we carry the conversion rates in our heads to make sense of it all? Clearly not, as American rocket scientists caused the crash of the 2009 Mars Orbiter by their inability to convert from the metric units that all the other collaborating countries were using.
For those of you who don't, the conversion is divide the square feet measurement by 10.764 to get square metres.
Seed will be weighed out at the beginning of April (at the rate of 12g per sq m). Watch this blog to see when you can collect it from the field house. I'll leave the labelled bags in there, in a mouse proof container.
Penny
Biolin, being the good Canadians they are sell their seed by the Kg and give planting rates as 12g per square metre. Everyone who is doing a grow along seems to measure their plot in feet. Why is that?
Is that because we actually think 12 inches = 1 foot, 5280 feet = 1 mile is easier than our own metric system?
How come we measure the temperature in the garden in degrees Centigrade, but the temperature in our ovens in degrees Farenheit?
Is it because we're increasingly becoming American in our ways?
Do we really want to be one with the only country on the planet still using a system based on the arm length of Henry I a thousand years ago?
How come we measure the distances on our roads in Km and the distances in our gardens in feet?
Do we carry the conversion rates in our heads to make sense of it all? Clearly not, as American rocket scientists caused the crash of the 2009 Mars Orbiter by their inability to convert from the metric units that all the other collaborating countries were using.
For those of you who don't, the conversion is divide the square feet measurement by 10.764 to get square metres.
Seed will be weighed out at the beginning of April (at the rate of 12g per sq m). Watch this blog to see when you can collect it from the field house. I'll leave the labelled bags in there, in a mouse proof container.
Penny
Friday, January 4, 2013
How to calculate the amount of flax seed you’ll need to grow yourself a shirt in 2013, and has anyone seen old hackles for sale?
We now have a Canadian source of flax seed http://biolin.sk.ca, and what lovely people they are too. They research and promote the growing of flax in Canada for linen, oil and shive (straw), sell processed flax for spinning, shive for mulch and pet bedding and lots more uses.
I have had several very nice informative emails from them and they’re taking a real interest in the Vancouver Flax Project, even though they’re aware it’s only tiny compared to the amount that farmers grow in Saskatchewan.
Randy Cowan, their Director of Operations recommends ‘Elektra’ as the best variety for our climate and to produce a good fibre yield. He was kind enough to include details of how much you would need and how densely it needs to be sown. They’re happy to sell small or large amounts of seed to whoever wants it.
For those of you busy calculating how much you’ll need to order from them to grow yourselves some linen, here’s what he had to say:
The seed needed depends on the seeding method, if you are broadcasting (scattering) the seed then you will want to aim for a 2,000 plants per meter squared, this will make the plants compete and thus will give you a consistent small stem, easy to ret and decorticate. If you are row seeding the competition would not be as good as broadcasting, the loss in emergent plant count is also not consistently known as the seed now has to compete with its neighbor in the row as well as the environment.
Fiber Flax Seed is 5 grams per 1,000 seeds (Elektra is a fiber variety)
Assume a 90% vigor/emergence because not all seed reacts to the environment the same.
So, for every square meter seeded with fiber flax = 2,000 seed desired seed times 5 grams per 1,000 seeds times 90% vigor/emergence = 12 grams per meter squared
Things have not gone so well on the sourcing hackles for flax processing (more about what they’re for in another post).
My supplier, the only supplier of new hackles on the continent, has family heath problems, and cannot be sure if they can provide me with hackles at all. I’m fairly sure they forge and build them themselves. Alden Amos and Stephanie Gaustad have been famous in the spinning world for many decades for their beautifully made fibre tools and wheels. For those of you not sure what I’m talking about when I say 'hackles', here is a link showing what flax hackles look like.
http://pweb.jps.net/~gaustad/flax.html
Old ones, which frequently can be found in antique stores labeled as florist’s frogs, or broken wire brushes, look like this….http://www.mainememory.net/artifact/14773
If you see one anywhere please let Penny or Sharon know and we’ll go and buy it immediately! They do appear on eBay, but are snapped up very quickly.
Now you’ve seen the pictures you can understand where the saying ‘ it made the dog’s hackles rise’ comes from!
Penny
I have had several very nice informative emails from them and they’re taking a real interest in the Vancouver Flax Project, even though they’re aware it’s only tiny compared to the amount that farmers grow in Saskatchewan.
Randy Cowan, their Director of Operations recommends ‘Elektra’ as the best variety for our climate and to produce a good fibre yield. He was kind enough to include details of how much you would need and how densely it needs to be sown. They’re happy to sell small or large amounts of seed to whoever wants it.
For those of you busy calculating how much you’ll need to order from them to grow yourselves some linen, here’s what he had to say:
The seed needed depends on the seeding method, if you are broadcasting (scattering) the seed then you will want to aim for a 2,000 plants per meter squared, this will make the plants compete and thus will give you a consistent small stem, easy to ret and decorticate. If you are row seeding the competition would not be as good as broadcasting, the loss in emergent plant count is also not consistently known as the seed now has to compete with its neighbor in the row as well as the environment.
Fiber Flax Seed is 5 grams per 1,000 seeds (Elektra is a fiber variety)
Assume a 90% vigor/emergence because not all seed reacts to the environment the same.
So, for every square meter seeded with fiber flax = 2,000 seed desired seed times 5 grams per 1,000 seeds times 90% vigor/emergence = 12 grams per meter squared
Things have not gone so well on the sourcing hackles for flax processing (more about what they’re for in another post).
My supplier, the only supplier of new hackles on the continent, has family heath problems, and cannot be sure if they can provide me with hackles at all. I’m fairly sure they forge and build them themselves. Alden Amos and Stephanie Gaustad have been famous in the spinning world for many decades for their beautifully made fibre tools and wheels. For those of you not sure what I’m talking about when I say 'hackles', here is a link showing what flax hackles look like.
http://pweb.jps.net/~gaustad/flax.html
Old ones, which frequently can be found in antique stores labeled as florist’s frogs, or broken wire brushes, look like this….http://www.mainememory.net/artifact/14773
If you see one anywhere please let Penny or Sharon know and we’ll go and buy it immediately! They do appear on eBay, but are snapped up very quickly.
Now you’ve seen the pictures you can understand where the saying ‘ it made the dog’s hackles rise’ comes from!
Penny
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