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Flax fields


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This year the number of fields given over to growing flax (lin) has been surprising. It is rotated on a four or five year cycle so I am seeing some fields of it for the first time.

Strange, straggly plants, with the stalks cut and laid flat until they rot, then off to be used for clothing, mainly in China nowadays, apparently.

The seeds are increasingly used for food supplements - I put it in my oats, for example.

The plants are environmentally friendly too apparently.

And what a change the crops make from the usual arable stuff, particularly bl oody boring fields of spuds.
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Now now, I love potatoes. And they are rather pleasantly green and leafy........ and a million times better than those sinister sunflowers we had in our region........... urrgggghhhhh!

Or the manky looking maize, that seems to be about rotten by the time they pick that too.

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'pale blue flowers' - beautiful, as you say, Loiseau.
We lived in a cereal growing area and it was often a puzzle to guess what each field contained.

One farmer only ever grew maize - he fed it to his pigs. But the others chopped and changed, and occasionally grew flax. Other favourites were sarassin and colza. Wheat barley sunflowers etc.
I think flax was used as a green manure.

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This has reminded me of a house we very nearly bought in Deux Sèvres.

In the grounds, there was a sizeable lake which was obviously man-made.  On looking at old maps, we learned that it was a place for soaking flax.

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[quote user="Lehaut"]and a million times better than those sinister sunflowers we had in our region........... urrgggghhhhh!

Why sinister? They look lovely imo.[/quote]

I agree, I love sunflowers and think they look incredible.  In fact, every summer, I take the chance to drive along all the roads round here where I know I'd see them.

What I do find boring are vineyards.....kilometer after kilometer after kilometer, on and on and on, with virtually nothing else in sight other than vines....

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