Mr CD

Mr CD has something to tell you.

Naked Oats

The two patchy looking rows in the foreground are naked oats, sown in autumn 2009 and photographed in March this year. The rows were about 3m long and the total yield was just over 1kg. I am trying to decide whether to sow it all again in spring, or sell it in 10g packs to curious growers. Not much point in having a dehuller if it is too successful. It is second from the left in this pic.

Finally, a Bowl of CSA Porridge.

Last year we became members of Bantry CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) group and became proud owners of some of the oats. Oats have a hard shell around them called a hull. Chickens and sheep are able to digest them whole. Cattle are happy with them if they are rolled however people prefer them dehulled. It proved impossible to find anyone to dehull them and In May we bought (with some financial help from West Cork Development Partnership), this machine from Horn in Germany. The instructions came in German, and although we were aware that it would not dehull every single groat we were initially a bit disappointed with its perfomance. Kinsale CSA brought down some of their oats, and found someone to translate the instructions. After a good afternoon playing with the settings and running the oats through a few times they started looking pretty edible.

So, we tried ours yesterday. After dehulling they were washed to float off any remaining hulls. We also put some of our own sunflower seeds through the machine which worked quite well and we added them to the oats along with a hand-full of our own dried gooseberries, and a little of Tim Rowe's honey. It was a delicious breakfast. The porridge tasted really nutty.

We would be delighted to dehull your oats for you too.