Let’s face it, Mother Nature has fooled us by giving us hopes of an early spring, but March, the month of storms, hadn’t said its last word. While we’re waiting for the good weather to return, I thought it would be interesting to talk about a slightly tropical and unusual vegetable crop to grow for pleasure in your garden next season.
Curious by nature, I’ve loved making new discoveries since the start of my horticultural career. I spend hours starting my own seedlings and take a certain pride in it. Even so, when spring arrives, I can’t help running around the greenhouses and small nurseries in my area to find new things and curiosities to plant in the garden.
For several years now, I’ve been particularly fond of visiting a local nursery, La pépinière Jean Gagné, a passionate family business. Here you’ll find hundreds of varieties of tomatoes, flowers and vegetables. About three years ago, while walking through a section of the nursery that contains an incredible treasure trove of little garden treasures, I discovered a very special vegetable: the peanut, a legume native to South America that is now grown all over the world.
After asking Mr. Gagné about peanut growing, I left happy with my little box of 6 plants. What I took away from the information: temper my expectations of productivity and make it an experience for the whole family!
Growing Peanuts
Growing peanuts is pretty straightforward. Seeds are readily available from a number of seed suppliers.. The ‘Valencia’ variety is the one most often found, since it’s early and well-suited to the Canadian climate. At first, the plants produce a multitude of yellow flowers. After pollination, a shoot (called a gynophore) emerges from the base of the flower, heads towards the ground and penetrates it to produce the seeds. This produces peanuts, which you can then harvest in the autumn, just like potatoes. This process is called geocarpy.
Des semis à la récolte
You can start seedlings 4 to 6 weeks before the last frost, depending on your region, in small 4-inch peat pots and plant them in the garden in June. Peanuts need well-drained, light soil and a very sunny spot. Once your plants have begun to produce peanuts, I suggest you reseed them, i.e. pull up the soil around the plant to ensure that future pods are in the ground. As peanuts like long, hot summers, we recommend harvesting them as late as possible in autumn, when the foliage has dried out, making sure to protect them in case of hard frost. This will ensure a good harvest.
Once you’ve harvested your crop, all you need to do is dry it. Once you’ve removed as much soil as possible, you can lay the pods out on newspaper in a well-ventilated, dry place. Save a small quantity for reseeding the following year. Roast the rest in the oven for your own consumption. Once roasted, peanuts are delicious, and even if the quantities are small (about a handful per plant), the result is very satisfying!
A Successful Experiment!
For me, it was a positive experience that I repeated in subsequent years, using peanuts harvested at home. Harvest time was a great family success. The discovery of the many buried stalks on which the peanuts were found will remain a fond memory of our experiences in the vegetable garden.
My seedlings were planted in a greenhouse, but it’s possible to grow peanuts directly in the garden, even in pots. You can use any type of pot, as long as you provide enough space for the gynophores to burrow underground and create the pods that will hold your precious peanuts.
I particularly like the geotextile containers. They’ve been used for all edible landscaping projects at Urbainculteurs for over a decade. In addition to a long lifespan at an affordable price, this technology provides good aeration and avoids the spiralization of roots seen in conventional pots. It also enables the development of a denser, more efficient root system. These pots are made from a very light, unbreakable and cold-resistant material, which means they can be left outside during the winter.
Here’s what you need to remember: whether you’re an experienced gardener or not, whether you have a large vegetable garden or a container garden, it’s possible, and in fact quite easy, to grow a mini peanut crop. Have fun, dare and discover!
My raised beds have tons of volunteer peanut plants, sprouted from peanuts collected and buried by the squirrels. I pull most of them out, but I’ve left a couple just to see what happens. Also, my grandpa was a peanut farmer in Alabama, so it looks like I’m continuing the tradition in California!
My Father never hilled peanut here in the South with 6-7 months of warm weather. He just had us drop a half of shovel of soil on the middle of the plant, forcing the limbs down to the soil(same thing maybe). The wild deer love peanut & sweet potatoes vines, but our dogs keep them at bay.