Thank you very much for this interesting and tutorial clip. Very inspiring. When growing decorative grass in perennial flower beds I use a Japanese kind of sickle to prune the grass in spring and autumn. It has a bit different design because the edge has got teeth which makes it very efficient when cutting grass. Look up herbateous sickle from Niwaki. Grab a bunch of straws and cut it with the sickle pulling the sickle towards you. It works a bit like a saw, its very sharp. This kind of sickle is used when harvesting smaller fields of rice in Japan according to the company that sells them. Which you and your family all the best. Greetings from Stockholm.🇸🇪
Did you ever try to cut it with an electric hedge trimmer? There are some with the possibility to put the cutting blades in an angle to the grab bar and they also have long grab bars, so that you don't have to bend down for harvesting. Using it like this you get some sort of electric scythe, but without having to push on the straw. Maybe together with harvesting earlier that would help making the work easier. I always wanted to try that too, thank you for the inspiration!! Greetings from denmark 🤗🌻🌞
On planting, I have a wood rake I made with fence pickets for teeth. It cuts furrows every 6 inches and raises a ridge between them. I rake the plot out straight. I scatter oats or rye or buckwheat on that and then rake it flat at an angle to the furrows. That covers the seed very well and leaves it in rows and it doesn't leave clumps of seed or skips. On cutting with a scythe, you have to sweep toward the already cut side and you have twist at the waist and not swing your arms. Put your hat under your left arm and hold it there to teach yourself not to swing your arms. The blade should ride the ground. My back is too old to do it now.
Wonderful video and I just subscribed! I’m also learning much of this stuff on my own right now so I find your videos and those of many others very very very helpful :). Thank you!
Could you tell us what variety of hulless oats you grew? When I look, it seems they mostly all recommended for livestock. Is there sort that is best for people food? If you mentioned it, I missed, I apologize, Thanks.
Fascinating, following your progress! So interesting. Thank you! This is my first year trying wheat...and that worked well. But would like to try oats too, so this is interesting. I wonder...would a sieve help you separate your grain from your chaff? I'll keep watching, to see how you get on! Good luck!
lol...I love this chap...when I saw him trying to hack his way through his oat field like a Vietnam jungle, I wondered if he actually knew what he was doing....fair play to him...I've never grown oats....although I do have wheat going in this year...
You could also try using a bucket and scrape the heads in that way, you could use a hand brush to do that or your hands. I have aways wanted to grow a patch of oats in my backyard and I came across your video and gave me inspiration, thank you very much, happy harvesting 😊
I wanted to give you an additional link that explained "tillering of oats". ( ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uV0jD25WbJI.html ) Start at 5:00 min. interval.
I saw your first video and I thought that you should try an electric hedge clipper 😊that is basically a mini sickle bar. Thanks for a great description of the whole process
Great video. I would like to try growing some oats and other grains myself. I couldn't help but think you need a vacuum the whole time the grains were dropping on the ground lol. I wonder if a powerful shop vac in combo with some kind of shearing comb or an appropriate comb with a razor near the teeth base would work well?
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.
I was going to comment asking why you would use a mower, but this is the whole point of experiments. You try what ever you can think of and see works. Nicely done and I hope you can find a good way to harvest them! I'm not sure if you are interested, there are mini power hedge trimmers that might work well. You can hold it in one hand and hold the stalks in the other hand.
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.
Just two small technical errors are making this harder than it is. 1. Your oats are past normal harvest times, they are way to brittle at this stage, so anything bumping the stalk will cause the oats to fall, even a strong wind is probably 'reseeding' your plot. 2. your tools need to be very sharp, the idea is to cut the stalk quickly without it moving much. This allows you to cut the stalk without knocking the heads loose. Also, and this depends on your seasons.... after you are done with that plot, you can water it in again and probably get a full crop again if there is enough time.
