Flax harvest at Parque da Devesa

The last few days have been intense and mostly devoted to Flax, that has maturated with the arrival of the summer heat and quickly became ready to harvest.
The variety we are growing, the Galego flax, has this trait that is more common in the wild flaxes and that makes knowing the right moment to harvest very important.

Dehiscent capsule that opens spontaneously;

The capsules, that contain the seeds, are dehiscent. This means that they open spontaneously upon maturation, releasing the seed to the ground. It's easy to understand that if we're a bit late for the harvest, we risk losing a good part of the seed. For someone, like me, that keeps it from one year to the next to sow and multiply, harvesting at the right time is crucial.
When the plants start to turn yellow, we need to keep an eye on the capsules. When the first ones open, it's time to go.
That's what we did with the group that is taking our Flax course in Famalicão, although we had to wait about three days to gather everyone for the harvest.
Did we loose some seed during those days? yes.
Should we have done the harvest on the right day? Ideally, yes, but in this case, learning is more important than doing everything right.
This year our flax came out quite short. Spring was very hot and, more importantly, unstable . Last year we had plants about 20cm taller. But the weather is really something you cannot control and flax has an very direct response to it.

Harvesting the flax. In this picture it was slightly overdue, as you can see by the color of the capsules.

The flax harvest is done by pulling the plant, not cutting, so that all the fiber in the stalk can be used.
As we harvest, we lay the stalks in the ground, always aligned to the same side (capsules to one side and roots to the other), so that rippling is done easier. It helps to make smaller piles of stalks and cross them so that the capsules don't tangle, or it will be more difficult to separate a small amount to ripple.
The harvest is not difficult, but in order to be done quickly, we need to pay attention to the details and work as a team!

The most imporatnt thing for the harvest is team work.

Rippled flax with no capsules.

Rippling consists in separating the capsules from the stalks. We do this for two reasons: to keep the seed that is inside the capsule for the coming year, and also to prevent the oil in the seed from interfering with the retting process.
The ripple is the tool we use for this. This year, along with the museum grade ripple (but very functional), that I take with me to the workshops, I got a new version made, more practical, that worked perfectly.

The small bunches of flax, ready to be submerged for the retting process.

When the rippling is finished, we prepare the bunches of stalks to be placed under water. This also a fairly simple task. The only thing I do is, within each bunch, placing half of the roots to one side and half to the other so that it is more balanced and easier to tie.
Since we are doing everything at Parque da Devesa, we also had to use a small tank at the Casa do Território to do the retting part of the process. Since it is not too deep, we just needed to tie a few stones to keep them underwater and we were done.