Flax

I met the Flax ladies again today - and acquired some more flax seed! The ladies were telling me how, seeing the whole process from sowing the seed, harvesting and processing the stalks into fibre and linen cloth, has made them appreciate how "valuable" linen was in earlier times. We take our clothing for granted these days - and so much of it isn't even natural fibres - just churned out by machines. If we had to go back to growing our own linen, or spinning wool, we wouldn't be so cavalier about chucking old clothes in the bin. Not that I throw much away!
They were telling me how they snack on the seeds when they are harvesting the stalks - and this is what I want to do. - grow for the edible seed. Until now I've been puzzled why flax seeds are so different to linseed which is also flax. It seems they are different varieties of Linum - a short one that produces linseed and a taller one that is grown for the fibre. Obviously, it still produces seeds which are edible. I need to find out more.