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Oats evolved on poor, cool, acid ground and they behave accordingly. Given a rich bed, a spring dressing of manure or a general feed high in nitrogen, an oat grows fast, tall and soft, with long weak internodes and a heavy panicle at the top. The first heavy rain with wind in it lays that crop flat. Once down, oats rarely stand back up, the grain fills poorly against the ground, and mold gets into the panicle. This is the commonest way a garden oat crop fails, and it is entirely self inflicted.
If your bed has grown a heavy feeding vegetable the previous year, sow oats into it without adding anything at all. On genuinely poor, sandy or worn out ground a light nitrogen feed at the tillering stage, when the plant is throwing side shoots from the crown at about four to six weeks, is worth giving, but keep it modest. Nothing after jointing, when the stem begins to extend and you can feel the first node with your fingers low on the shoot. Late nitrogen goes into leaf and straw and softness, not grain.
Potassium is the one nutrient worth thinking about, because it stiffens straw. Wood ash worked into the bed before sowing at a light rate does the job and suits oats, which are indifferent to the alkalinity it brings. Do not lime an oat bed for the crop's own sake. Oats are content down to about pH 5.0 and gain nothing from being pushed towards neutral.
| Growth stage | What it looks like | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Emergence to three leaves | Grass-like shoots, no side shoots yet | Weed between rows by hand, keep birds off, do not feed |
| Tillering | Side shoots appearing from the base, bed thickening | Light nitrogen only on poor ground, keep soil damp |
| Jointing | Stem extending, first node felt low on the shoot | Stop feeding entirely, keep water steady, this is the water critical phase |
| Booting and heading | Swelling in the upper sheath, then the panicle pushing out | Water if dry, do not walk in the bed, support edges if needed |
| Flowering and milk | Tiny anthers hanging, grain squeezes out white | Most heat sensitive stage, mulch and water to keep roots cool |
| Dough to ripe | Grain firm then hard, straw yellowing | Withhold water, net against birds, watch for shattering |
Water where it matters
Oats need more water than wheat or barley for the same weight of grain, but not spread evenly across the season. Two windows carry almost all of the yield. The first is jointing, when the stem is extending and the panicle is being laid down inside it, and drought at that point permanently reduces the number of spikelets the plant will ever set. The second is flowering into the milk stage, when the grain is filling and a dry week gives you light, pinched, husk heavy kernels.
Between and outside those windows, oats look after themselves in most temperate gardens. Autumn and early spring rain is usually enough, and the crop puts down a fibrous root plate that pulls from deeper than it looks capable of. The exception is a bed under a wall or in a raised frame, which dries far faster than open ground and will need a soak in any dry spell.
Once the straw begins to yellow and the grain has gone past the soft dough stage, stop watering altogether. Water at that point does nothing for the grain, it delays ripening, it encourages mold in a dense panicle, and it softens straw that has to hold a heavy head up for another two or three weeks. A mulch of straw or grass clippings laid between the rows at flowering keeps the roots cooler and cuts the water requirement noticeably in a hot summer, which is worth doing anywhere summers run above 85F (29C).
Keeping the crop standing
Lodging, the flattening of the crop, is the problem to design against from the beginning. Sow into unfed ground, sow at a sensible rate rather than absurdly thickly, choose an open site rather than a sheltered corner where the crop grows leggy reaching for light, and keep nitrogen away from it after jointing. A stand grown hard, on the lean side, with plenty of light, has short thick internodes and stays up through weather that would flatten a pampered one.
In a small bed you can add mechanical support, and it is worth doing where the bed is exposed. Run stakes at the corners and along the sides at about two thirds of the crop's final height, and string twine between them in a grid or simply around the perimeter in two rows. The crop leans into the twine rather than folding over. Put this in before heading, because once the panicles are out you cannot walk in the bed without knocking grain off.
If part of the crop does go down, do not try to lift it. Prop the edges if you can reach them from outside, and otherwise accept it and plan to cut that section first, before mold gets into the panicles lying on damp soil. Grain from a lodged patch is usable but will be lighter and will need more careful winnowing because the panicles pick up soil.
Note in your records which part of the bed lodged and in what weather. Lodging is almost always repeatable, because it comes from a wind funnel, a shelter that makes the crop leggy, or a patch of ground that was richer than the rest. Two seasons of notes and you will know exactly which corner of the garden not to sow oats in.
Weeds, birds and walking in the bed
Weeding is a job for the first month only. Until the canopy closes, run a hand or a narrow hoe between the rows and take out broadleaf weeds while they are small; after the oats have tillered and shaded the ground, almost nothing establishes underneath them, and oats are competitive enough that treading in to pull a weed does more harm than the weed does. Grass weeds are the exception and are worth pulling at any stage, because they ripen with the crop and their seed ends up in your grain.
Birds are the standing threat from heading onwards. Pigeons take the whole panicle, finches and sparrows work along it grain by grain, and a small garden bed is exactly the sort of concentrated target they find quickly. Netting held on a frame clear of the panicles is the only thing that reliably works; anything that touches the crop lets birds perch and feed through it, and reflective tape and scarecrows buy you about four days.
Get into the habit of staying out of the bed from heading onwards. Oats shatter, meaning the ripe grain drops from the panicle at a touch, and every trip through a ripening bed shakes seed onto the soil. That seed will germinate in the following crop and be a nuisance. Do your looking from the path and your reaching from the edge.