Are you just trying to get out of eating your gruel? hahaha

LOL Chancy...No, gruel is o.k. Wondered if plants have a cholestral problem though!

Calpat,
Somewhere in the distant past I remember hearing something about oatmeal in planting holes. I have no idea if oatmeal has any properties that would resist bugs or disease in plants. But, it is high in iron. Perhaps this might be the reason for using it. I will give it a try in potted plants to see what happens.
It sounds as though we are going to need a Kitchen Cupboard Forum. Just think of all the products we organic gardeners pull off the kitchen shelf for garden use. Cornmeal, baking soda, hot pepper, garlic, vinegar, molassess, milk,....etc. All very effective treatments for garden problems. My DH is grumbling that I feed the garden better than the family!

U of Idaho mentions oatmeal as a "bait" for some kind of worm. Wasn't obvious to me what problem the worm caused.

I have used a recipe from Jerry B that includes oatmeat for perrenials and ornamental grasses mix in a tub 2 pounds dry oats 2pounds crushed dry dog food 1 handful of human hair and 1/2 cup of sugar mix and place and trowel full around or in the planting whole-- I lent the book out to a fellow gardener I remember that the dog food worked as bone meal I'll check back in when I get the book back

Their is something in oats that stimulates root growth, I remember reading this a few years ago. The article I read suggested using an oat kernel to help a plant root faster when you layer it. It sugested making a split in a branch along the length, cramming an oat kernel in the split, then securing that part of the branch to the ground.

I would avoid quick oats, since they are precooked, I would go for the old-fashioned type =)

I read somewhere once,that if you put rice grains in the soil when you plant carnations, it helps them to germinate. Meant to try it, but never got round to it.(story of my life !!!]

ya know, if you put enough of this stuff in the ground, the critters are going to think it's a buffet! i use peanut butter and oatmeal for groundhog trap bait- very successfully! the possums and skunks like it, too!

Hi madeline
Many years ago my father used to put grain in a split when rooting carnations
It never worked, the grain grew but the carnation cutting did not
Regards
Len

I would like to root carnations.
For zone 9 is there a best time of year?
Would planting them with oakmeal benefit the rooting process?

Some in vitro processes, aka cloning, aka micorpropagation sometimes use an agar with an oat extract. I rather suspect that is where the yarn about adding oatmeal to holes when transplanting got started. (Some of the very early research on The Experimental Control of Plant Growth, there was a book by that name written by a Dutch(?) scientist , Fritz Went (?). He used oats for much of his research so the use of oats as a source of the extract used in the agar may be an old idea.)

1 cup of dry oatmeal around roses will prevent diseases, like black spot.Use it once a month.