Flax

On monday we harvested and yesterday we planted slightly over 200 flax plants.  Listening to Jon talk about it, it sounds like we are saving the NZ ecology by doing this.  Its flowers are an important source of food for the birds here cause they are too deep for the bees.  Then more birds eat the seeds that grow after the flowers are gone.  It is also really good at getting its roots deep to get water and stabilize the ground.  Then with the leaves of the flax you can weave to make rope or linens.  Dont know if we'll get to do that since we just transplanted them...

This is flax

Harvesting was one of those things were you just have to accept that you are going to get wet and dirty and then it becoms a lot of fun.  But until then it kinda sucks.  It was a rainy morning and we stop on the side of the road somewhere that Jon knew about, and cut our own path through the thick wet brush.  At this point all of us had on our raincoats and were pretty cold and miserable.  Once we got started though and warmed up, we all didnt care it was raining and had a good time cutting up these plants.  It is amazing how brutal you can be to it and have it still survuve.  We had spades and would cut up one fan from the rest of the plant, keeping some roots intact.  Then you cut off all of the leaves except for the middle one.  The "brains" of the plant according to Jon.  Then just throw it in the trailer until two days later when we got to plant them.  

Like I said... a dirty job.  That shirt was blue and green to begin with.

Then planting was relatively simple... dig a hole, put in the plant, fill it back up.  Of course we decided to put 2/3 of the plants in swampy areas, where digging was more efficient with our hands.

 

Hence we got dirty...again.  Left to Right: Laura, Hannah, Dani, me, Rich