So it was pretty clear very soon that this would not be our usual Linen Project year for farming flax. The same goes for my personal flax experiments. I knew I wasn’t going to be able like last year to travel back and forth between the Netherlands and Germany, also I was (I am) in my final semester of the master studies. Since this year is not a normal year anyway, I am not going to go for the normal flax experiment either. My shared flat has one balcony, something of two squaremetres, practically the only outside space I had closely available even for the worst case scenario of getting quarantined. I have no clue if somebody ever tried growing flax on their balcony.

What I knew for sure was that flax roots deep. Somewhere I read that flax has roots as deep as it gets tall. So I made a cotton planting bag with plastic lining which hangs in a wooden frame. Below you can see the sketch and measurements for it.

I started off creating the cotton bag and then adding the plastic lining (which is just regular plastic bags). I’ve pinched holes throughout the whole plastic bag lining, because I was afraid if I wouldn’t, waterlogging would appear. In addition, I decided on the way of making the planting bag, to add extra support for the fabric and lining. I sew in some rope which I could later attach to the wooden frame with some nails.

On 09.04.20 I was putting in soil. I was surprised by the incredible amount! It did fit 135 litres potting soil. I practically used the potting soil that I could get my hands on. I was looking for rather poor soil, as I didn’t want the flax to grow too fast because of having too much nutrition. I ended up pwith a mix of “80l Intratuin Tuingrond”, “20l Intratuin Aanplantgrond” and “35l Aldi Universal Potting Soil”.

Read here about the sowing of the flax and its growth!