Totnes Grows Flax: growing flax together in community

In 2025, a new community flax growing project was born! Totnes Grows Flax was developed by Liflad, in partnership with Transition Town Totnes and The Flax Project, spanning the breadth of the year: bridging seasons, community spaces, gardens, heritage crafts and more. 

TTT had a chat with Liflad’s Zoe Gilbertson who leads on this project, to reflect on the first year of Totnes Grows Flax, and share the challenges, lessons and delights of a project that holds visions of locally grown flax in community at its heart - from seed to cloth. 

Zoe is a designer and educator whose nature-centred, collaborative practice explores the economics, governance and process required to develop non-extractive food, fibre and textile systems. She moved to Totnes a few years ago after undertaking an MA in Ecological Design Thinking at Schumacher College, Dartington. This transformative experience provided the confidence and theoretical knowledge to begin the local bioregional work to support current and future resilience in local places.

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What are the dreams and ambitions that brought Totnes Grows Flax into the world? 

In January 2024 I undertook a 4 week research journey by train through the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Spain. I was exploring the processes, governance and knowledge needed to create small scale systems of supply for flax and hemp in the UK. We’ve grown flax for over a thousand years and it used to be a staple for those who grew their own food, managed commons and created their own produce including clothing. My work at Liflad involves thinking about how we can create resilient localised ecological supplies of useful goods such as food and clothing and flax is brilliant in this regard, providing the means for both. 

On my research journey I was particularly inspired by The Linen Project in the Netherlands, where stewards grow small amounts of flax together and similarly in Nova Scotia, Canada where Tap Root Farm has created the infrastructure to enable small-scale textile production. Here, farms and small holdings are supported by the Flaxmobile - a mobile van driven by Jannie who teaches and encourages flax growing and processing. Grassroots community activities need to be combined with any new infrastructure so that projects can be locally supported and markets and culture can develop together. I approached TTT with the idea for Totnes Grows Flax so that we could literally seed the idea of flax production in the area. I know that TTT are amazing at delivering community projects and that they’d be the perfect partner to work with.

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Could you share a bit about the flax journey, from seed to cloth? 

Well, it is quite a journey but a brilliant way to show people how much of our production of consumer goods is out of sight and mind these days, with clothing made by ‘other’ people in ‘other’ places. First of all you plant the flax seeds around mid April, they like clear, weed free ground but will grow happily in most soils without much water. Flax does like rain to germinate but once it’s up and growing it should be fine without much water. The baby flax may need weeding when the plants are very small but once they get going it can be left alone. Around mid June beautiful blue flowers appear, these last for a short period and the flax slowly starts to turn golden until the plant is ready to be harvested between 90-100 days. Pulled up by the roots, it’s stored in ‘stooks’ until ready for the next stage of ‘retting’ where the flax is rotted and broken down by microbes using water and heat. This can be done through either laying it on the ground for 3-10 weeks in the sunshine and light rain or putting it into pools/troughs of water for 7-15 days. In our crazy unreliable climate, water retting is the safer option. Next, the flax is dried for at least 8 weeks, ideally more, then put through a process called ‘breaking’ where the straw is gently crushed and the woody inner core of the fibre falls away. Scutching knives further remove the husks and finally the fibre is ‘heckled’ and put through a series of different sized heckling combs. A beautiful golden fibre, a ‘strick’ of flax, is magically revealed through this process that is then put onto a distaff to be spun and then finally woven into cloth. I’ve summarised spinning and weaving into one short sentence but this also takes time and involves a lot of different skills.

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“I’ve so enjoyed being part of Totnes Grows Flax this year. From sowing the seeds back in April to watching the beautiful flax plants grow over the summer and then the whole business of harvesting, drying, retting and processing the flax into fibres - I feel I’ve learnt so much from the group, so thank you very much to everyone involved.
I’m definitely hoping to grow more flax in my garden next year!” ~ J

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What was the response to this new project like? 

We’ve been amazed by the response to this project, we had at least a hundred people express an interest with over 50 growing in locations in the area. People collected seeds from the Climate Hub in Totnes but I also sent out packets to people further afield and it was grown in schools, allotments, gardens and market gardens across South Devon.

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What were the highlights of this first year of Totnes Grows Flax for you? 

I was so surprised by how well the flax grew, although I probably shouldn’t have been because Totnes is a town full of experienced growers. People took such care to follow the instructions, using the correct seeding rate and grew beautiful, strong flax. I was also delighted by how easily the conversation flowed through the processing workshops, with young and old chatting away as they broke their flax, rippled the seed or pulled the fibre through combs. The rhythmic sounds of processing combined with the buzz of chatter was most surprising and energising. I think many people sensed the same, it felt almost therapeutic and very natural, experiencing cloth production how our ancestors would have done.

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Can you share a valuable lesson that you learned through the project in 2025, big or small? 

I’ve grown and processed flax before but never really undertaken community retting on a larger scale and this process took a lot of time and input to get right. Water retting involves quite a lot of labour, as does the stacking and drying of the flax. I’d heard this was the trickiest part of the process but until you experience it properly you cannot really ‘know’ this. That was a valuable lesson for me, some things can be learned and anticipated in theory prior to undertaking a new task but much of it has to be experienced directly and physically embodied to really get right. I know this applies to every skill and task worth undertaking and I think we forget that in these times of instant phone gratification and Youtube videos. 

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What are you most looking forward to in the next chapter of the project?

We have applied for funding to continue and extend the project and we hope to bring it to more towns and villages across Devon. We also plan to dig deeper into the heritage aspect and uncover the stories of mills across Devon, farms where it was grown and understand the lives of those who worked with flax in Devon in the past. I’m also looking forward to working with a local primary school in Totnes who are dedicating a month to flax. Children will experiment with growing and processing while exploring aspects of science, maths, history, DT and textiles in an intuitive, gentle exploratory manner. This is super exciting and I cannot wait to see what the children come up with in relation to this amazing material, I know they will love it!

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“I have had a wonderful experience with the project - appreciate all the knowledge sharing and community building!  Really lovely to be connected with local growers and involved in something that feels very important. Great to add fibre production for diversity in the garden alongside all of our food and nature work, plus it's been a joy to share the experience with many hands who have helped through the process.” ~ L

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So where to next?

Totnes Grows Flax will be running again in 2026, and the first event of the year is coming up on Saturday 14th March! The kick off event will be at the Civic Hall and you can find out more and get your tickets here.