How to Harvest Flax Seeds
Flax is a common agricultural product normally grown on a large scale, but home gardeners can also produce small quantities of the crop in their backyards. Flax seed has many nutritionally beneficial properties, including a high content of fatty acids. To harvest flax seeds, gardeners must dry out the stems first before removing the seeds from the pods. You can add harvested flax seeds to most baked goods. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Wait four months after planting until 90 percent of of the seed pods are brown.
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Grab the stems by the handful. Pull them up from ground level, making sure to get the whole plant, including the roots. Clean the dirt off the roots and tie three to four handfuls together with a string at the base of the stems.
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Hang the flax up in a room that is dry, warm, and has constant air circulation. Wait two to three weeks for the stalks of flax to become completely dry to the touch.
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Tie a pillowcase over the top of one of your bundles of flax. Place the bundle on a flat stretch of ground. Jump on the pods or smash them with a wooden block until all of the pods are broken.
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Shake the pillowcase to release the seeds from the crushed pods. Empty the chaff and seeds from the pillowcase into a bowl and repeat the crushing process with your remaining bundles of flax.
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Put a colander on top of a mason jar. Pour the seeds and chaff into the colander and gently shake it back and forth over the jar to sift the seeds from the chaff and stem. Discard the stems and chaff. The seeds will remain in the mason jar.
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References
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