posted 2 hours ago
Hi all- first post. My wife and I grow veggies for sale (CSA) but we're determined to grow hulless oats (and ultimately other grains) for ourselves. Zone 8b, maritime northwest WA. We're working with hand tools, very heavy clay soil, and little money to throw at the matter. We could find so little info about growing grains and cover crops at this scale, we assumed it would be easy. Used up two attempts this year, and we'd be lucky to yield half the oats we started with. If we can get oats or other cover crops to grow reliably, we'll be on our way to expanding the vegetable garden without relying on imported compost.
A word on the soil. There's more space than we could ever fill. Five years ago when we moved here, it was seriously over-grazed and dead. In dry summer months, it's so hard that a heavy digging hoe will bounce off it. In winter, you could just about throw it on a pottery wheel. Early-on, we hired our neighbor to chisel-plow and disc it, and we broadcast fescue mix in the resulting dust. It grew well and uniformly without irrigation. In following years, the ground has hardened again and the field has reverted to shorter grass and buttercup. We have a hard time getting any food to grow in it without putting on a thick layer of compost (and that we do). We're working with hoes, broadfork, rake, scythe, sprinkler, push seeder, etc.
Your experience with similar soil and cover/grain crops would be greatly appreciated. If it's truly not feasible without more horsepower, that'd be just as good to know. Thanks.
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