I saw a packet of peanut seed from the Ontario Seed Co. this spring and bought it on a whim. I had no idea that peanuts would grow in our area, but the back of the seed packet said they would, so I thought I’d give it a try. Not many seeds in the packet, just enough for one 8-foot row. They came up, and they flowered, and then they didn’t seem to do anything else. I read up on peanuts and they are supposed to throw “pegs” out which arc back into the soil and that’s where the peanuts grow. Well, I imagined these “pegs” as large (or at least visible) shoots, and I never saw any… So I figured they hadn’t made any… We’ve had a bad, bad drought all summer, and I didn’t irrigate the peanuts, I just gave them a couple of gallons of water a few times during the worst of the drought. So I figured they hadn’t “set fruit” (or in this case, nuts).
This afternoon when I was picking the ripe tomatoes (yes, our tomatoes are still ripening in mid-September – we’ve had a rough year!) I decided to pull one of the peanut plants, just to see. The book said to leave them until the leaves turned yellow, and mine are still green, but curiosity finally got the better of me and low and behold – there were peanuts!
Just a couple (I pulled one of the smallest plants), but actual honest-to-goodness peanuts had grown in my garden! I’m totally thrilled, and will be planting LOTS more next year. The best part is that they grew with hardly any irrigation in a summer of severe drought. Since our local climate seems to be getting hotter & drier in the summer, this is so good to know!
I make all our jams & jellies, but we buy a fair bit of peanut butter and roasted peanuts. Knowing I can grow our own peanuts makes me feel like I’m one baby-step closed to self-sufficiency. We have hazelnut and walnut trees that should start to bear in the next couple of years, so the addition of peanuts and sunflower seeds expands our options for reasonably reliable non-animal protein.
It turns out that the “pegs” I was looking for and not seeing were the little shoots that come off near the bottom stems and burrow almost straight down into the soil under the plant. Next year I’ll know what I’m looking for!
Time to start researching my options for a food mill / grinder that has attachments to handle both cereal grains and oily nuts…
Awesome! I’m excited as well!
That’s really neat!! I’m interested to hear if they taste particularly different.
Keen gear! Peanuts would never have occurred to me as a garden food!
Oh wow! Peanuts? That’s all kinds of awesome!