Linseed

When I blogged the oil seed rape a couple of weeks ago, I said I would try to post a photo of linseed. We are not growing linseed this year - it's only an occasional part of our crop rotation. This linseed belongs to our neighbour who is also our arable contractor.. Few farms round here are big enough to be able to justify the investment in arable equipment - plough, drill, combine harvester...

Linseed is a difficult crop, in some years it doesn't ripen sufficiently to be worth harvesting. The problem this year, for both the linseed and the oil seed rape, is that they are flowering over such a long period that it will be difficult to know when to harvest them. The seed on some plants will be over-ripe and falling off, while the seed on other plants is not mature...

It was glorious in the linseed field this morning with the warm sunshine, the linseed flowers shimmering like the waters of a lake, and innumerable skylarks :-))