How to grow and Harvest Oats on a Small Plot
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ต.ค. 2022
- This video shows how to grow and harvest oats on a small plot.
If you want to see our follow up video the direct link is below.
• How to Grow HULLESS Oa... - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
You need to hold the sickle and the scythe right. You ca't hack at the stalks. For the sickle you need to put the blade close to the ground and pull towards you while keeping the stalks taught. this gives a clean cut. For the scythe, you need to keep the blade parallel to the ground and use wide sweeps cutting only a small bit at a time. The scythe and sickle were designed for this work. You just need to learn how to use them and they need to be razor sharp with constant sharpening using a scythe stone.
Your right ..........either sickle needs to be close to the ground ..... using the weight of the stalks to help cut. These tools see very dull !
Thanks for the suggestion.
blade should be as sharp as possible.
Try a jari mower
@@valleyviewacres9666 I remember when my grandpa used the scythe it had to be very sharp and he was cutting in a sweeping motion. Somebody would walk behind him and collect the bunches of wheat or barley and tie them and stock them upright together to dry. He would also stop every now and then and sharpen the scythe. There is a sharpening stone for that purpose. I found a translation for it as whetstone, hone or burr.
Justin Rhodes has a video on how Jim Kovaleski uses the scythe. See if you can find it.
Your main problem is you are waiting too long to harvest. With modern harvest equipment, you want the grain dry as possible to save drying expense and stave off mold. If you are going to "harvest like great grand dad", then you need to cut the oats just before they are dried out. With the heads being slightly green yet, they won't drop off all the oats. You can cut them and stand them in staves to dry before threshing, to finish the drying process.
As a kid, I watched the Amish do it. Cutting with a scythe , tying staves, and a little later, threshing the grain with a gas motor running the thresher.
yes they need to be stooked Cut a little on the green side, We stooked and wait at least a week in hot dry weather
Thank you for your comment. I appreciate the information. I will try that on this years hulless oat crop.
@@timothyhume3741 where do you buy oars from?
@@valleyviewacres9666 I look forward to seeing your progress.
The Amish were using a gasoline powered machine? Why the....
This gentleman is so cool. He opted for putting his hand to something wonderful. He took the time to learn all about how to share his experience. He tried numerous options. By default, he compelled many others to respond and share their knowledge/experiences, which, in turn, helps many others to learn.
While he was disappointed with his yield, he did what most will never bother to do, and he should be very proud.
This gentleman is a treasure.
Absolutely, I agree. People who invest their time in trying something new, especially with regards to agriculture, are the pioneers that improve things for everyone, yet are never acknowledged.
A truly selfless activity. Thank you sir!
I am using a scythe to cut the clover lawn so I can collect the clippings for mulch in the garden. Lane mower always leaves the clover in clumps, but the scythe cuts it nice and clean. I am still awkward at using the scythe well and need to have my husband adjust the handles for me so I can use it better.
I learned as recommended to cut when wet is much easier. Since I dont rise and function early an easy enough for dew, that is not always an option for me, but it sprinkled off and on the last few days, and mowing couldn't be done anyway, so out came my scythe and we had a fun time together.
Mulched my garden with the clippings 😊
U know I'm not doing it right, because I hurt afterwards. Maybe after some adjustments to the handles for my height I'll see less pain.
I'd libe to have and oat patch to scythe while still wet and greenish, maybe before to long I'll set one up
Agree! 🎉
That carpet on carpet sanding method seems pretty genius to me. Thanks for making this video
Guess a blokes never to old to sow his wild oats
Keep up the good work
Good job on your analysis. You took the time to share your findings with others which is appreciated.
As kids, it was our job to "winnow" by placing some at a time on a large flat bed-sheet type cloth and tossing it up (just a little; not too high and could gradually go a little bit higher if necessary). Done under the close and watchful eye of our mother who'd give us the beady eyed "look" or fuss if we got the least bit too rambunctious. The grains fell back onto it while the rest eventually gently blew away after awhile. However, it was never done on a breezy or windy day because would lose the grain too. Daddy did the harvesting though.
As kids, we also had the jobs of shucking ears of corn, picking and snapping beans, feeding the hens and collecting the eggs, milking (the neighbor's cow; the milk was bartered or paid for) and later churning some of the cream into butter after our mother had separated it from the milk and split it into various amounts to make different things.
You obviously know far more about how food is grown & prepped than most people these days. Something it would be worth teaching all kids I’d think
Absolutely loved your video showing patience & relentless effort with different tools at this age, normally i dont post comments but yours obligated me to. Cheers to your hard work !!
I watched the entire video and took notes, thank you. These things are important in the face of possible food shortages.
I'm glad you are growing your own oats. I believe you are harvesting at the shattering stage of maturity and as a result a stiff wind could knock the grain off the stalk. Harvest earlier and hang sheeves or stack them out of the weather till they dry out and mature.
We planted oats for cattle feed and got a combine when I was 14 or 15. Until then we used a “reaper” which cut (using a sickle-bar) or scissored and bundled the oats, men then stacked and forked them onto wagons later. It would then go through a threshing machine that separated (read shook) the grain from the straw then the oats grain went through an old wooden human powered (me) winnowing machine that used a paddle fan to blow the chaff away from the grain.
I went through all that to suggest, if you try it again, use the bar type electric or gas hedge trimmers to harvest, (Or a mowing machine) gather the downed grain by forking it into your cart, beat or rub the oats on ¼ or ½ hardware cloth and use a box fan on low as you sift the grain through the mesh wire. The “gentler” fan will blow the chaff while the heavier oats will drop into your collection pile. Keep in mind this experience was 70 or so years ago, so some of the process may be “dis-remembered”. Also if you use the scythe, it must be incredibly sharp and constantly honed.
Thank you for the comment. I am going to try the oats again this year using the hulless variety. I enjoyed reading your past experiences.
There is a family farm in Pennsylvania that grows oats for cattle feed. But they have huge machinery to help! If my dad were still living, I bet he could invent some sort or harvester and thresher that would be affordable. 😊
This is so wholesome! I can't wait to buy some land and start growing things like oats!
You and me boh! I rent the place i am at now but ive utilized nearly every square inch with garden beds rabbit cages chicken coup chicken run ! The problem is is that i cant afford to buy land so with that being said can i have some of your attention over on my channel? hope this is ok with @Valley View Acres?? God Bless Yall!!🙂🙃✌✌👍👍💪💪🙏🙏
Why not grow what you can where you are? That was Joel Salatin's suggestion to James Prigioni when James mourned that he didn't have enough $$$ for a farm. Now James and his dog Tuck have a "food forest " in their suburban backyard- anda TH-cam channel. Good luck to you!
@@brandywineblue We have been growing the best we can the problem is renting property ive already pit thousands into someone elses house so yeah 😁 I dont want to put anymore money into it I need my own land
Loved this video. I hope you will post about your next oat harvest also. What will you do with the oats after harvest? Grind for flour? Roll for flakes? I would love to see your process. I want to grow my own as I also have gluten issues as well as provide some chicken feed. I think you can tell from the amount of comments here that growing and harvesting grains small scale is something many are interested in but not much info out there. Thanks
Our oats did outstanding last year ... until The Geese found the plot.
We did a 50' x 50' block in out Family Plot. They did great! But ... we've got about 2 acres of pond that were less than 100 feet from the Oats. 17 geese came in. They had babies. At last count I counted 43. They did great all summer. Lost one or two to predators. The rest found the Oat plot about 10 days before harvest and absolutely destroyed it.
Win some, loose some.
Experience points gained.
Eat the geese.
@@Kyle-sr6jm That's right! Well fed!!!
Win some, goose some
Bet you have some very fat healthy happy geese 🪿😁
I've often considered trying my own grain. I sure do appreciate you showing the full process.
I worked in tobacco for many years, and when the boss was starting the tobacco plant's in the greenhouse we had to keep the plants trimmed, and the trimmer was a hedge trimmer with a catcher box on the back of it and the whole unit would work well for your oats I think as long as you could front mount it on your tractor you should really look up a greenhouse trimmer for tobacco plant's I'm pretty sure it's what you're looking for good luck and God bless
Tobacco plants are started in a plant bed, covered with plastic, which is later changed to light cloth as the weather warms.
I'm very late to the party. I agree with the posts about waiting too long. I'd also recommend giving the hand sickle another shot, but not whacking with it like it's a machete. Get it as sharp as you possibly can, then grab a bundle together with one hand and draw/pull the sickle across and through the stems. It's meant for slicing not chopping
Its a grass sickle he's using, plus that design was never much good, you need a forged sickle which has a real cresent shape to it...
This! Yes. Also, please look at the camera, not the screen ;) Thank you for showing us what you are trying to do, though. Try cutting with a sharp instrument, with steady and easier movement without hacking at it, while it's still a little green, stack upright to finish drying then thresh it. You will see an improvement in the harvesting cycle/process. (Like the idea using a brush to thresh. You can always use a pillowcase and smack it around.) Best wishes
I plan to grow oats this year. I've been thinking a lot about how to harvest them. The video is very helpful because I was thinking in the same direction. It will save me a lot of time. Thank you!
me too, a new crop experiment every year. I would have gone through all the same options but watching this will save time, plus the great suggestions (sharp tools!)
Coming from a farming family, I am convinced that the problem with wheat for human consumption is it is treated with roundup just before harvest and the residual causes digestive problems for humans.
round up works as an anti-biotic, even residually, alas I have discovered even things like peanuts are sprayed so depressing. When I found I was reacting to lentils. I learned a few years ago you can wash wash wash them and get enough G-stuff off to not die of bloat! Yeah it desimates the good guys in your guts! I turned "sensitive" aka as celiac right after a gut stripping medical treatment.
Yes, roundup is the greatest evil that happened to us in the last few decades. It is neurotoxic and cancerogenic in addition to acting as antibiotic and wiping out bacterial flora and causing leaky gut. It took me a few years until I realized i didn't have gluten sensitivity but rather herbicide poisoning. When I started putting the two and two together I realized that coincidently with the time glyphosate has been used the illnesses came about that have not been in existence in a nearly preposterous scale. Anybody over the age of 50 can look back and remember that cancer, diabetes, alzheimer and other neurological, gastrointestinal diseases, allergies and autoimmune were not that common. Anybody who is suffering from any of these has to repair their gut first. There is a scientist who has researched a lot on this subject, Stephanie Seneff. There are hours of videos with her lectures and she also wrote a great book "Toxic Legacy".
@@itsno1duh You can use ozonated water or soak in baking soda to neutralize the toxic stuff but it's probably safest to avoid these products. When more people learn the truth and stop buying those maybe finally they will stop using these poisons.
Agree!!
yes!
Wonderful experimenting! I thoroughly enjoyed this video. I have been contemplating growing oats myself. Thank you for the education!
In my younger days, my family grew oats (mainly for animal feed.) We had a very old oat bundler machine that would cut and bind the oats into tight bunches called bundles. Then we would gather the bundles (sometimes called sheaves) and stand them up in groups called shocks. The oats had to be cut before the heads were so ripe the grain wouldn't shatter out. After drying the bundles the oats would dry enough to gather the grain.
As many have said here a scythe or sycle are absolutely useless unless kept razor sharp.
Thanks for sharing your oat growing experiment with us. Doing things on a small scale sometimes are quite a challenge, but discovering the problems and finding solutions is a satisfying adventure.
An electric hedge trimmer mounted to a couple of 8" wheels with a handle would take the back breaking part of the work out but would cut the stalks without jostling them and knocking the heads off. Just a thought. It's how I plan to do it anyway since I have the electric hedge trimmer.
Thank you for trying a new crop and taking us along. When you share online and everyone comments, most of them are constructive. I learned alot from your video and comments.
Great documentation! I like the explanation of your process and thinking and how straight forward you are with it all.
Love that fact that you're willing to try things, make your own mistakes, and learn from them. Kudos to you, my good man. 🙏
My great Aunt had celiac disease but she was 80% less reactive to gluten after doing some NAET allergy elimination treatments. She didn't have to be so careful about contamination after that since a small amount of gluten didn't cause the same immune reaction. I had Grave's disease and psoriatic arthritis and saw both go into remission because of NAET. It literally saved my eyesight and quality for life -been healthy for 10 years now without any need for treatment :)
It is always wise to either identify the root cause of an issue or outright just fix it energetically, although the latter can be challenging. (see Bruno Gröning faith healing)
Intestinal sensitivities are no surprise considering the problematic substances in US food products. Especially with baked goods, the process boosters in it that speed up the making can cause issues. Many people with such issues report lots of improvement with slowly, traditionally baked products.
To get the intestines in order, which is crucial for overall good health, fasting and eliminating irritative substances can help.
Husband and I really loved this video - looking forward to seeing more this year!
Enjoyed taking the journey with you. Thanks for sharing
Very good video! I would definitely recommend to anyone who wants to learn how to grow and harvest oats.
My husband is celiac and we follow the "The real human diet" with Dr Ken Berry and we had been doing this for several months now and his celiac is absolutely no problem at all now. We live on 5 acres and in our 70s retired farmers but decided eating this way was going to be a lot easier to our bodies as we get older and frailer rather than making more work for ourselves also we use pre and probiotics on a fairly regular basis. As a retired nurse and farmers wife we need to learn to work smarter not harder as eventually our bodies cannot sustain hard physical work. I'm watching your videos with interest as I can see it's all an experiment and a novelty with you at the moment. Good luck with your new way of life.
I just ordered and received hull-less oats from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. The stalks are called oatstaw and make a nutritious tea.
Thanks for letting me know the source of your oats. I found some at a company called Albert Lea seed, and I ordered a bag from them and it wasn’t too bad to purchase it, but the shipping was about twice as much as the cost of the oats. Anyway, eventually maybe we’ll get this down. Thanks again for your comment.
Thanks for your video...very good...enjoyed very much...and gonna try grow some oats too...
Michelle from Horse Creek Queensland Australia 🙋♀️🌻.....🦘🦘🦘🇦🇺..we on a small farm in the mountains...🙂
Thank you for your comment. I enjoyed making the video. Just a word of caution to you, if you want to grow the oats so that you can eat them make sure you find Hulless Oatseed. Otherwise, it’s almost impossible to get the hull off of the groate so that you can eat it.
You could try making something like a grain scoop, with slits cut into it like a comb. Should be easy to make from a piece of 6" or 8" PVC pipe (can probably get a piece big enough for free if you stop by a building site that is laying sewer pipe). That should give you mostly grain and hulls, and only disturb the stalks you are scooping from....light and easy to pour into a bucket as you walk along
I am thinking piece of plywood with 3" screws sticking up and beat and pull it through.
This is an interesting concept! I know that many Native peoples used beaters and beater collecting baskets to harvest all types of seeds and grains, and that could work here as well.
A berry scoop would be the same thing
You reminding me of my Grandaddies. They always were patient teaching me, and they learned things they didn't know through trial and error to get a job done. Good job.
Thank you for the video!
It’s so great that you shared this so that we can all start with a little extra knowledge because of you.
Thank you sir!
Thank you for making this video, I have a small patch I’d like to grow oats on and this video was very helpful for my planning. I’m also on Utah! 😊
Greatest neighbor I’ve ever had!Thanks for the video, would love to see more of your experiments
God bless you. You must have a really strong back. Thanks for finishing what you started no matter what you went through. Excellent comments here to help explain the process and mistakes and advice on how to improve. I love to learn something new everyday myself. Thanks
Enjoyed the video. Good looking property. Keep up the great work.
Wow! No shortage of interesting comments! Thanks for your presentation. Very informative and helpful for me. In the past I've grown wheat and now I'm think I'm going to try my hand at wheat. My wheat efforts have been in a plot about 25 x 90 area. I've also started harvesting with a sickle and have upgraded to a scythe. The key is sharp and swing with your whole body not jus with your arms. I'm going to try and grow oats this year. I learned from you comments that harvesting oats is done when they are still slightly green and not totally golden dry. One other take from you presentation that I especially liked was you threshing using a carpeted area and rubbing with a carpet covered block. Wheat is not quite as easy to thresh. I live in S.W. Michigan. So
Great to see folks growing their own oats. As a retired farmer/rancher I would suggest if you plan on tiring grain crops again is using a small 3 point hookup old style sickle mower like used for cutting hay if you have a tractor with a pto 3 point. That is what is used on front of the harvester combines to cut the stalks. You can get an old one fairly reasonable priced at farm equipment auctions. Or another idea would be a cordless sickle type hedge trimmer would work much the same way. Great video friend. 👍
Beautiful work…I admire that at this age you try your best to get quality food.Wish you many years in health and happiness in that beautiful valley.
Adorable. Thank you for taking us on your experiment and saving us our own trial and error periods. Hope subsequent years were more bountiful for you.
Highly considering growing some oats this year or next. You gave some great ideas in this video. Would love to see what you end up doing with those oats. Thanks!
Thank you so much for putting this much effort into the video. ❤
Thank you for sharing. Have a beautiful day.
If I remember right, they cut it while it was still a little green then let it dry on the ground before collecting for the thrasher. That way the heads were still tight enough to hold on.
While this looked to be quite a bit of work for fairly little yield, I like the idea and appreciate your time. We have 15 chickens this year, which is a new thing for us. We’ve bought 5 acres, started a small business onsite and are at the beginning stages of creating a different life for ourselves. Its been a lot of work this past year, and will continue to be Im sure. May give this a go just for the experience, as well as oats for the chickens and straw for bedding.
Great video Brent, hope you plan on making many more!
Hi, I would think you should try the electric " Hedge Cutters " they have a ossilating cutter bar.
Epic video. Thank you for taking us in this journey. I will use what I have learned here.
Great video and experiment. Thankyou for putting the success and failures up there. You've saved me from making the same mistakes on my plot.
I'm keen to jump straight ahead to the powered hedge trimmer and put it directly into a barrow to capture the dried heads that fall off easily.
Thanks for this video. It has given me so many dreams of growing some oats and barley for my horses ( and self!) 🌞
That was a lot of work ! Thanks for your diligence 😊
You have a beautiful place there, looks like a dream property ❤
Blessings
I appreciate so much, all the experimenting you did. The comments are also so helpful. I am also celiac and gluten-free oats are so expensive. I missed that part of your video at first, where you explain, so we both had the same thoughts: great idea to grow your own! Thanks to your video I am actually considering growing some. But I guess the ratio seed to harvest amount hast to make sense though. Thanks so much!
Came across this video by accident and am glad I did. Very interesting.
This was a tremendously educational video for me. Thank you for taking time to experiment with the growing of oats on a small scale.
One thing I thought of that possibly might be adept at cutting the harvest without losing the heads is one of the manual lawnmowers with the spiral blade. Who knows.
Again thanks for the terrific camera work and Oh!!! the scenery....awesome!!! Jesus bless.
the "reel" would beat the grain off the head as it pasted through the mower.
Thank you for your comment. I have an old, manual, lawnmower, but from my experience using it, I would never be able to push it through anything as tall as the oats. Thank you for your suggestion.
My uncle would always wait too long to mow the backyard ....the push mower couldn't get through tall weeds so he had to sharpen his uncle's old sickle and get after it!
This was a great video. I would enjoy seeing more of your videos
I enjoyed your video a lot. Informative and relaxing
I have a large garden with chickens & we love feeding the wild birds. Every year I try to grow a new kind of carbohydrate to help us all along. Haven't done oats yet except as a cover crop & bird food. Been thinking about it though. That straw is a valuable product also!
I was literally thinking about this today, thank you for the info.
I would suggest manually pulling off the seed heads and come back later with the mower and composting the stalks
Great video! I’ve learned a lot from you! Thank you
Thank you for this video! I got some hulless oats from a friend and I am going to try growing them :)
I like your process of finding the best way that works for you.
Wonderful video. Thank you!
This is awesome. I wish I was your neighbor, I enjoy working with you.
i enjoyed your video. some people i know use a box fan for winnowing their grains. hopes this helps in the future.
Wow, I learned so much! Thank you sir for your video and all your hard work, I very much appreciate it.
Thank you very much for your video. I have wondered how this would all work if I ever had to for food.
what a wonderful & useful video! Thank you!
Good job, thanks for sharing, will be looking for more from you. God Bless you
Thank you for taking time to make this video for us
Love your attitude and experimentation. Thanks. When you tried hedge clippers my mind went immediately to battery operated hedge trimmer. You could wave it horizontally just above ground level, but that would get tiring real fast. Instead, mount it to a board with wheels and handle. Viola! Lazy man’s sickle bar.
thats so cool! I have thought about growing oats! Appently you can make tea from oat straw. which is interesting too!
I love your experimental approach to the problem your where willing to solve, step one have and idea and step 2 experiment a way us the tools to your disposal and make the best of it, I feel like i have learned a lot from your video, and i would like to say great job, and I feel inspired, and that i learned a little bit more, you didn't have too many biases on ideas and didn't give up. great job and keep up the good work.
Thank you for your experiment sir, exactly what I was looking for.
Thank you for your experiment!
The store brand, quick oats, conventional I've bought for years were 2.50 for the largest container. The past year and a half they are now 4.00. Thanks, Brandon!
i love your scientific process of experimentation. lots of good ideas
Excellent post
Hard to learn your grand parents technologies
Very good thank you
Thank you for sharing your experiment!
Cut it with your scythe(you're not cutting with a scythe properly) earlier, when the plant isn't completely dried; this will keep them from falling into the soil. Bunch stalks together in sheathes. Place the sheathes upright in the field against one another and let air dry. Beat the sheathes, called thrashing, into a big clean trash can. Winnow what is in the trash by using a fan or on a windy day.
Interesting and fun video to watch, thank you for taking the time to make it. I live in Hawaii and believe that oats, and rye and barley grow all year round... I have never tried but plan on growing about a hundred square feet of the triple grain all mixed up. I have about 35 chickens and believe they would benefit a lot by eating what I grow... It is all beginning stages with the growing and I have a lot to learn, but thank you for your effort!
❤I really enjoyed your experiment. And, I am proud of a person who is still willing to get down on his/her knees to get a job done. Bravo! GOD GUIDE AND BLESS YOU 😊 ANGELS WATCH OVER YOUUNS; PROSPER AND EXCEL!
Great video and I like experimenting with things to see the results mind you I also do a bit of reading and research too to find ways but hey you did a great job well done 👍🇬🇧
I would harvest sooner but I would make sure the sickle and scythe were both sharpened nicely before using. I think they would do the job.
One of the "Troy Built" scicle bar mowers. Keep the blade close to the ground, and you could cut it all down in a few minutes without knocking off a lot of seed. Then gather and dry. Alternatively, a battery powered hedge trimmer with a scicle bar. Would need to get down on your knees again, but you could gather as you cut.
what a terrific t-shirt. greatings from Argentina
I really enjoyed your presentation. I hope to try growing oats this next spring 2024. I've grown wheat before many times, but I'm going to try adding oats to my garden. I have a couple of suggestions. First, start the harvest process sooner. Instead of waiting till all the oats are bone dry, you could harvest them several days sooner when they start to turn golden. You will find that they will continue to dry completely in your greenhouse just fine without much if any lose of grain in the harvesting process. I thought your idea with the carpeted plywood and block of wood was a good idea. Finally, your winnowing would work really well if you just would use one of those cheap house box fans. That is what I've use for all my winnowing of wheat and dried beans. Your effort with a scythe would work much faster if you did the following, Sharpen your scythe really well and did your harvest before you grain was still on the greenish to golden color. Thanks for sharing.
If you want a power option you need a sickle bar mower. You can also use a hedge trimmer that cuts in both directions. If you look at an equipment rental place you will probably be able to find one. Another option would be a farm equipment store , they sometimes rent walk behind equipment for farmer.
The hedge trimmer is a great DIY option for small plots. I got an extra used hedge trimmer attachment at a garage sale for 10 dollars, bought a square drive bar, welded a pulley onto said square drove bar, and using a wooden frame to holding together I mounted it on the tow hook for my riding mower, and used a belt extended from the deck drive pulley to drive the trimmer blade, extending to the left of the mower off the rear.
If I included the cost for what I didnt have to buy because I already had it, total project cost was less than 50 bucks (not including welder, riding mower, and drill).
it's hard to imagine paying for equipment just for 30lb of oats. it does sound interesting though
I enjoyed your video because I want to grow oats and lentils and have been trying to figure out if it is possible to do so in a non-commercial scale and without fancy tools. You swing the scythe from the shoulder otherwise your arms would wear out in no time. If you have not sharpened it, they require a lot of sharpening even having to stop in your work to resharpen it on the fly. I would sharpen yours and see if it makes harvesting less work for you next year. I thought a 30 lb + return for 10 lbs of seed was decent and encouraging and I really appreciate the real-world tutorial and honesty about your experiment. Will be watching more of your vids now that I have found you.
Very well done. Thank you.
I have a small, battery powered hedge trimmer. I tied it with twine and bungie cords to the deck of our riding mower, making it into a side sickle mower. We have a tow behind catcher so this works. Threshing can be tough though. The grass catcher is likely your best option.
Good idea it really likes to be cut with a scissor action.
Thank you! This was extremely helpful! I'm going to grow them this year
Afternoon friend. I would tell you to try a circular saw blade attachment for the bottom of the string trimmer. I have used this method to cut down tall grass. I think this would make it easier to harvest. Or a hedge trimmer.. Just one thing I have tried and i never tried the hedge trimmer idea because i ended up really liking how the string trimmer with the attachment worked. Hope you try it. I know it would save you loads of time!
Professionally sharpened blade aswell
Excellent video. Very informative.
It was f fun watching you figure all of this out 😁💕
I found hull-less oat seed on Amazon last spring and planted an experimental, tiny, patch. They did fairly well, here in Texas until we had several days of 110- temps. I will try it again, maybe planting in November or December and harvesting in the spring. Harvesting by hand was my plan and will probably be the best way for me, cutting close to the grain and mowing the rest for the chicken pen.
Oats are a winter crop in Texas, here in south Texas.
@@variyasalo2581 That is definitely be the way I try them next. Thanks.
Thanks for making this video. Seems like a valuable learning experience. For a larger scale option, perhaps you could harvest when things are a still a bit green and use a 3-point hitch sickle mower? not sure if that would be too aggressive though.
The one plus is that you lost a sufficient amount that your field will probably come up in volunteer oats the next year. You might need to disc it tho. Cutting smoothly with a sythe (videos on TH-cam) and cutting while a little green are great suggestions. If you cut green, you might be able to use a hedge trimmer. When it's that dry, it's hard not to have the heads shatter. You did well, but I'm 74 and I don't want to crawl that much! I'm impressed that you did that!