Unexpected Uses For Oats Around Your Home And Garden

Most people associate oats with a nutritious and healthy breakfast. Aside from its most obvious purpose (being made into delicious bowls of steaming oatmeal), dry oats is also useful in surprising ways. Raw oats has many unconventional uses for various household tasks, both inside the house and out in the garden.

DIY solutions using common household ingredients are all the rage on social media, and oats can be counted among some of the most handy. Anecdotal evidence has revealed how this common grain can help combat house and garden pest problems, clean up various messes, and feed plants and wildlife. Many people have put oats to the test, blogging and vlogging about innovative ways they've experimented with this cheap and easy-to-find grocery item. Even leading oat brands, like The Quaker Oats Company, list some of these DIYs on their business websites. Learn more below about the most noteworthy ways you can use this popular breakfast ingredient in everyday life.

Unsealed food containers and kitchen messes naturally attract unwanted household pests like ants, cockroaches, and silverfish. One way to combat this is via strategic placement of the foods that lure these creatures, so you can draw them out of hiding and eradicate them for good. Silverfish are especially attracted to oats and other grain products, and creating an oat-based household silverfish trap can help you capture them.

Start by cleaning up the messes that may have attracted an infestation in the first place. Bathrooms, living rooms, and kitchens are the most commonly afflicted living spaces. After deep cleaning, seal any gaps in doors and windows. This keeps more insects from coming in. To set your trap, pour some dry oatmeal into a glass jar. Line the sides of the jar with sticky double-sided tape (so they can walk up the outside), and the insects should get trapped inside. Once you have handled the infestation, be sure your grain products, especially oatmeal and flour, are sealed in airtight containers. You should also test out other ways to prevent house pests to ensure the issue is targeted at all potential sources.

Oil can be a total pain to clean up, quickly clogging cloths and sponges, and there are lots of different "oil spills" that can happen in the home. You might splash when decanting it (say from a bulk canister of olive oil into a dispenser for the table), knock over a bottle of cooking oil, or drop an oil-filled can of sardines. Or, you might accidentally splatter oil while topping up your vehicle's engine in the garage. Thanks to its high level of absorbency, oatmeal can easily mop up hard-to-clean oil spills, both in the garage and the kitchen, helping to reduce a slippery and frustrating mess. 

If it's a large puddle, lay down paper towels or use throwaway rags to soak up most of the spill first. Then, sprinkle a generous amount of dry rolled oats. Step back and let the oats absorb the oil for about ten minutes – you may have to wait longer for larger mishaps or reapply. Use a towel to wipe up the mess, and the majority of oil should be cleaned up, though you'll still have to scrub away whatever residue is left behind.

Cleaning cast iron cookware is a tricky business, as most cast iron enthusiasts are very passionate about the "correct" way to maintain these pots and pans. Many people are adamantly against using dish soap to deep clean cast iron pans since it removes the protective layer achieved through "seasoning" cast iron. Instead of exposing your pan to soap and scouring away this layer (which can lead to rust and make food stick), you can use oats to clean caked-on grease on cast iron skillets in no time. Excess grease and small food particles will be removed without taking away the base layer of oil that's sealing off the metal from oxidization.

Simply sprinkle about two tablespoons of dry oatmeal or rolled oats onto the dirty cast iron surface. If there's a lot of excess oil in the pan, you might need to use a bit more, remove the oily oats, then put some fresh oats in the pan to really clean it up. You can also add a little water and scrub with your fingers, a sponge, washcloth, or dish brush. The oats will absorb any leftover oil, and their abrasive texture should help lift hardened food pieces. It shouldn't take long for stubborn food residue to be wiped away without affecting the integrity of your reliable cookware. 

You may have heard the theory that dry oatmeal swells up inside snails and slugs, and kills them. The YouTube channel Diary of an Organic Grower explored this popular notion, conducting a test and documenting how snails will eat until their bodies overexpand. The YouTuber opted to not show the end results on camera, due to them being a little, ahem, graphic. However, they reportedly found that the oats does swell, filling these creatures' bellies and thereby killing them. Some people who keep snails as pets also reported deaths after their snails ingested oats.

To test out the theory for yourself, try sprinkling some dry oats around your houseplants. Do not pour out too many oats; it's raw food and high quantities could attract other pests and rodents. You should also avoid placing oats thickly around plants because moisture in the soil (and from watering) can turn dry oats into a gooey mass that could adversely affect the stems. 

With enough research and careful application, raw oats can also be used as a DIY fertilizer to provide nutrients for certain plant species. Gardener and herbalist Daniela Rey told Homes & Gardens that oatmeal is a rich nitrogen source for plants. Other gardeners stand behind it as a great source of iron, as long as you're using oatmeal fertilizer for the right plant species. Iron and nitrogen are necessary nutrients that enable plants to produce chlorophyll, the compound they need to carry out photosynthesis.

However, you shouldn't sprinkle oats on all plants. The founder of Urban Organic Yield, Lindsey Hyland, says (via Homes & Gardens) that oatmeal "is especially beneficial for tomatoes and other vegetables that need more nitrogen in their soil, such as cabbage, broccoli, kale, lettuce, and spinach." However she warns that oats isn't ideal for all species of plants. While leafy greens in vegetable gardens will thrive on oatmeal, sensitive plants and seedlings shouldn't be fed oats, as it can retain too much moisture and make the soil soggy, leading to issues like fungal disease and root rot.

The abrasiveness of dry oats is good for more than cleaning pans. The next time you're gardening and get sticky plant sap on your skin, oats can help remove the glue-like substance. Among the anecdotal evidence behind this tip, there are people who claim this even works for pine tree sap, which is especially difficult to remove due to its high sugar content. Flowers, herbs, and trees often release sticky sap after pruning, or when infested with insects, making this a common dilemma for outdoorsy individuals. If you've ever tried to wipe off sap with a cloth or worse, paper towel, you'll know how hard it can be to remove. 

In order to make this hack work, all you have to do is rub dry oatmeal between your hands before going in with mild soap and water. So once you're finished with gardening, landscaping, or trimming pine branches, have someone pour dry oats on your hands (or place some in a bowl ahead of time). Scrub your dry hands over a sink or trash can, and wash off the remaining oats and plant sap using water and soap afterward.

While oats can work as fertilizer for some plants, it's also a potential ingredient for composting. By adding oats to the compost heap, you don't have to worry about the tendency of oatmeal to form a soggy layer around plants, since it isn't directly laid out on your garden beds. Instead, it will break down in your compost heap, releasing carbon and nutrients like copper, iron, magnesium, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, while helping to feed beneficial worms. So if you've started worm composting in your kitchen (or out in the garden), feel free to place any uneaten oatmeal in your worm bin. 

To clarify, you shouldn't put oatmeal on your grocery list solely to add it to your compost, as this wouldn't be at all cost-effective (and there are lots of great compost ingredients you likely already have at home). Rather, this is a good way to repurpose expired and stale oat products that would otherwise be thrown away. Tossing them into a compost bin reduces waste, especially if you also repurpose the oat container for home storage.

Birdseed often contains a mixture of seeds and dry oats, which acts a kind of filler. Instead of purchasing a premade mix from a local gardening or home improvement store, you can use leftover ingredients to make your own formula. It may be cheaper to mix your own, and it's a great way to avoid the weed seeds that are often found in bought bags of birdseed. Creating a DIY mixture can also help you tailor your mix to the birds you wish to draw in. Oats can attract birds like doves, grackles, pigeons, quails, sparrows, and starlings, who are known to like this ingredient. However, be aware that these are some of the few birds that will eat oats. If these species don't frequent your yard, the oats might get left to spoil or fall to the ground and become rodent fodder. 

All you have to do is mix the oats with various other dried ingredients to make a tasty concoction and sprinkle them around your yard or in your birdfeeders. Be advised that you should only use dry oats for wild birds. Cooked and wet oatmeal should never be included as The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds warns that prepared oats can stick to their beaks. You can also add small amounts of dry oats to DIY suet blocks.