growing peanuts

Our First Peanut Crop

gardening

If you’ve been keeping up on my gardening posts, you may remember that we planted peanut plants this year. I read that the peanut plants should be harvested when the plants turned yellow. Ours never really turned yellow. What degree of yellow were they talking about? I started to think that I’d better check out the peanuts. This was taking way too long.

I dug around and found a peanut under ground. A real home grown peanut! Oh boy! I was over the moon with excitement.

Peanuts out of shell. Success!

My bubble was burst a little when I actually dug up the plants. Hoping for loads of peanuts attached, I was surprised to find very few. Some had burst a bit and were sprouting. Oh no, I think I waited a bit to long.

I did manage to harvest some peanuts, just not as many as I had hoped for. I will not find out if the peanuts are any good for a while though, it seems. First, I have to dry the peanuts for a couple of weeks and then I have to roast them. A lot of waiting for such a small crop. This, perhaps, is why Planters is king of their domain.

It was fun to grow the peanuts. I think if I try this again next year, I will check on the peanuts sooner. My version of yellow leaves is not the correct version apparently. Don’t worry Planters, you haven’t lost my business, not yet anyway.

If anyone wants to share their peanut growing wisdom, please do so in the comments below.

As always, Happy Gardening!

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Peanuts and Potatoes

gardening

This year we are trying to grow peanuts and potatoes in the garden, both of which are new to our garden. Having never grown these before, we can only hope for the best. Both seem to be thriving as of present.

I have posted about our peanut plants before. Compared to my earlier posts, the difference is amazing. The plants are growing and look very healthy and happy. I am just crossing my fingers that the peanuts are doing their thing under the soil as that is where they grow and I can not see what they are up to.

Peanut Plants

Potatoes are something I love to eat. I am hoping to be able to get a home grown baked potatoe out of this crop. Initially, I left some store bought potatoes on the counter to sprout. These were then planted in the garden. One important thing I forgot to do was tell the other gardener in the family, my husband, that the potatoes had been planted. I should have put up a marker, but alas that would have been too simple. So, thinking weeds were growing in the garden, my husband tried to pull a couple and then realized what I had done and put them back. They must be hardy little guys because this uprooting did not seem to faze them at all. The plants look wonderful and are green with life. As with the peanut plants, the potatoes grow under ground so I am again crossing my fingers that all is well.

Potatoe Plants

I will be sure to post what happens with the crops when they are time to harvest. Stayed tuned.

As always, Happy Gardening!

Peanut Plants Update

gardening

Back in early April, my husband and I planted peanut plants in our garden. ( See post: https://wordpress.com/post/anotherdaywithjulie.home.blog/4783 ) It is now late May and I am happy to say that the plants are growing and have yellow buds.

The buds are an exciting thing to see as flowers are needed in order for the plants to make the peanuts. I am going to keep a close eye on the plants, hoping to see the flowers poke into the ground where they will, hopefully, produce peanuts.

Stay tuned for further updates from me on the progress of our peanut plants. For now, them seem to be healthy and heading in the right direction. As always, Happy Gardening!

Planting Peanuts

gardening

It was a beautiful So Cal spring weekend so my husband and I payed a visit to the nursery. We soon had our hands full of plants. Tomatoes, beans, peppers, and what was this…peanuts!

Yes, the nursery had peanuts. Having never grown peanuts before, I wanted to give this a go. So, peanuts in hand, we set about to get some seeds. I went inside while my husband got a cart, our hands becoming quite full. We picked-up some carrot and zucchini seeds and decided this would be enough to get started.

At home, we planted the garden. My husband had already prepared most of the raised beds for planting. We added some more seeds that we had on hand at home, lettuce and cilantro. This was a good start to the garden. There is plenty of space left in the beds, however, we still have plenty of time to plant. Spring has only begun after all.

I did some research on the peanut plants. Our pack had three. Apparently, the plant will grow yellow flowers which will turn back down and poke into the soil. The peanuts will grow from these flowers. So, it is recommended to keep the soil loose so the flowers will be able to penetrate the soil. Well, I am hoping for at least half a dozen peanuts so that we can all try one. If anyone has had success (or failure for that matter) with peanuts, I would love any advice.

I will keep posting peanut updates as they come in.

As always, Happy Gardening!