Today marks the 9th day since sowing my flax seeds, so I went over to the farm to check how their germination was looking. Generally it takes about 10 days for flax to germinate, so I was pleasantly surprised to see my seedlings well into their cotyledon stage. I’m a bit concerned that the plants look to be growing a bit sparsely (which is odd because the seeding seemed quite dense) – if I were growing to sell I would consider reseeding the bald patches. However, this crop is all experimental so I’m just going to let the germination run its course and see if there are just a few “late bloomers,” so to speak.
The weather also seems to be on my side during this growth process. During the past week of germination, we got quite a lot of rain. Because of this, I didn’t need to irrigate at all. Now that my seeds have germinated, I was happy to see that we are expecting clear skies for the next 10 days, which is exactly what the crop needs.
The bed also does not seem to be experiencing too much weed pressure. I pulled out a bit of grass weed, but other than that the flax seems to be able to grow unencumbered. The soil in the bed that I’ve chosen is a bit rocky which could be another concern for plant development, but I think it will be interesting to look at it from a “no till” perspective.