Oats as a Cover Crop

 Cover crops have been a recent interest of mine, and today we will talk about one such cover crop that is being used this year on the farm. 

In the photo above, oats are just starting to send their seed heads out. These oats are about 2 ft tall right now, and if allowed to grow to full maturity, they can be 3 ft tall! 

The benefit to having grasses planted is that they help hold the topsoil together, which can be beneficial in hilly terrain. I like using cereal grasses like oats for a few different reasons. The first being that they make great feed for chickens, and secondly, due to their rapid growth, they can quickly shade out weeds. 

Another benefit to having cereal grasses in no-till growing systems is that they perform natural aeration of the top few inches of soil. However, the difference between mechanical, or “artificial tillage” and plant tillage is that plant tillage does not allow the soil to become recompacted as easily as artificial tillage does. Instead of mixing the soil (artificial tillage), plants roots “till” the soil by creating pores in the soil, allowing water and nutrients to become incorporated into the soil. 

I personally enjoy growing grasses like oats in between crops because of the way it makes the garden look, and sounds! When the wind blows through the grass, it makes a pleasant rustling sound.