Growing Flax

_Brian

Saw this video online.
Great insight into the torturous work tue flax industry was.

Our area grew allot of flax, and more then once I’ve slipped into old flaxholes in this area while out and about.

https://youtu.be/dAIFSjC0lCA

gozunda

The retting ponds - where the flax was soaked also stank to high heaven so I was told. Flax was one of the very first grant aided crops afaik supported as an indiginous fabric over foreign cotton imports.

Flax greens were where the woven flax cloth was spread out to bleach in the sun and had a flax man (who often had his own hut) to make sure no animal or human took a short cut! It wasn't just Ulster either. Munster was an important flax growing area going back.

There was also a whole hierarchy of flax workers from those that grew it as a crop to the child workers such as 'doffers' as young as six years of age right up to the overseers in the flax mills.

My mother had a whole chest of good 'linens' that never saw the light of day such was the value put on them!

Say my name

Apologies for hijacking the thread but there's a resurgent interest in growing nettles again for fibre production just like flax used to be.
Apparently nettle fibre was very important till cotton was brought in and it superseded it. The benefits of nettle is that it's a perennial and requires little to no care.

https://twitter.com/BuildSoil/status/1084547499560296448?s=20

Edit: Fun fact.

Napoleon's armies were clothed in nettle fibre uniforms as were the Kaiser's in WW1.

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Say my name wrote: »

Apologies for hijacking the thread but there's a resurgent interest in growing nettles again for fibre production just like flax used to be.
Apparently nettle fibre was very important till cotton was brought in and it superseded it. The benefits of nettle is that it's a perennial and requires little to no care.

https://twitter.com/BuildSoil/status/1084547499560296448?s=20

Edit: Fun fact.

Napoleon's armies were clothed in nettle fibre uniforms as were the Kaiser's in WW1.

No wonder he lost at Waterloo.8-)

Donald Trump

Say my name wrote: »

Apologies for hijacking the thread but there's a resurgent interest in growing nettles again for fibre production just like flax used to be.
Apparently nettle fibre was very important till cotton was brought in and it superseded it. The benefits of nettle is that it's a perennial and requires little to no care.

https://twitter.com/BuildSoil/status/1084547499560296448?s=20

Edit: Fun fact.

Napoleon's armies were clothed in nettle fibre uniforms as were the Kaiser's in WW1.

Neighbours would be delighted alright if ya started sowing fields of nettles.


(Would have a good laugh too at the start...until they started spreading over )

Maybe if he gets a good year next year he'll be able to buy a guard for the belt drive on the oul' fingerbar

_Brian

I suggested to a group this week that rather than strumming and spraying a wild area that they should bring in nettles and more native plants.

The looks I got !

You’d think I’d suggested sacrificing newborn puppies.