Tue 6 Jan 2009
Four months of warm weather and well-limed soil are basic to a successful peanut patch. Peanuts are vegetables and are not difficult to grow and prepare. just ask any Southeastern resident who fixes boiled and salted peanuts or peanut soup. As vegetables or nuts, peanuts are interesting to watch and can reward you with a pint of peanuts per plant. Plants grow about 12 inches high and spread 2 to 3 feet across.
Peanuts mature in 110-120 days and show a decided preference for warm, well-drained, sandy or silt soil. One of the legumes, peanuts can use nitrogen from the air and don’t need heavy fertilizing or rich soil. Following pollination, blossoms send little corkscrew tendrils into the soil. Almost every tendril will develop an underground cluster of well-filled peanuts.
How to plant
Peanuts need lots of calcium. Dig in about 5 pounds of ground limestone per 100 square feet each spring (except on alkaline soil). Plant peanut seeds on built-up rows unless you have sandy soil. Shell the seeds without removing the thin red skins and sow them 1′/2 inches deep and 3 inches apart after all danger of frost is past and the soil is warm. If you want only a few plants, start the seeds indoors in peat pots filled with sandy soil and transplant them before the roots start to penetrate the walls of the pots. Cover the young transplants until they get started.
Care
Peanuts require a light application of balanced fertilizer before planting and again in the middle of the growing season. They are not heavy drinkers. Don’t cultivate around plant after pegs (just-forming peanuts) thrust themselves into the ground.
Harvesting
Harvest peanuts before fall frosts. Where summers are long, peanut plants will begin to turn yellow and die back when the nuts are ripe. Dig up the plants with a spading fork, carefully prying to keep from breaking up clusters. Gently knock off most of the soil. Place the plants in a warm, shaded, airy spot and allow the peanuts to dry. In two or three weeks, when the leaves are crumbly dry, pull the nuts off and store them in cloth bags. Allow them to dry thoroughly.
In containers
If soil is prepared as described above, peanuts will thrive in boxes or tubs with a soil depth of 12 to 18 inches.
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