Peanuts

[David Pilling]

2024 was the year of growing peanuts. The first three packets of seed all rotted (well known vendor). The next packet (ebay) almost all germinated.

Interesting plants - similarities with peas. Flowers appear on stalks from near the ground and are supposed to plunge back into the earth when (self) pollinated and grow a nut.

I got quite a few flowers, but none seemed to set seed. Not far past mid-summer the plants appeared to succumb to powdery mildew in the greenhouse.

Today I got around to tipping out the pots, which I'd abandoned outside. I did find two nuts (shells? with three nuts in) - see photos. Also plants which had attempted to produce many nuts. There also seem to be nodules on the roots, not to be confused with nuts.

It's been a bad year - cold and wet in Spring. In 2022 and 2023 there were more tomatoes than one could deal with, in 2024 one questions if it is worth growing them.

So everything has been hard work - I will try again next year. The well known vendor sent me some replacements, and I've got the nuts I grew, soon I will have bred a peanut tuned to the coastal climate in the North West of England.

[CG100]

I have never grown them, but plenty of sources recommend them as fun plants for kids to grow but given how large they should grow - a couple of feet high - and the space needed for the stems to drop and bury themselves, I would have thought that they were very ill-suited to growing in pots. Maybe a huge pot or growbag, or greenhouse bed?

They may end up as shells, and they may be buried, but the seeds are in pods.

Being a member of the pea family, the flowers will be absolutely characteristic of legumes, and the nodules on the roots will be as most peas and beans (although a few - runner beans for instance, make tubers not unlike small dahlia tubers, which can be stored frost-free and dry and used for future crops).

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=peanut+harvesting&mid=DB349782B69FAE52DFE5DB349782B69FAE52DFE5&FORM=VIRE

[David Pilling]

fun plants for kids to grow but given how large they should grow - a couple of feet high

Yes they sell them for kids, and I wondered about how dispiriting the first three packs of seed which rotted would be.

Mine never got beyond 6 inch pot size, they were not root bound either. Again perhaps due to the weather. But interesting to read how big they should be.

The tomato plants only got to normal size late in the year.

'pod' good word - escaped me.

Good crop of peanuts in the video, South Utah, sounds more the place than UK.

[CG100]

There are several UK websites, not all selling seed by any means, that "tell you how", but I do wonder...........

I do not recall ever meeting anyone who has got anything significant from them by way of a crop in the UK. One US website suggests that you need something like a minimum of 20C for the entire growing period,which wouldn't happen in any greenhouse anywhere in the UK without heating.

Unless going for seed, I suspect that very many will be dried at too high a temperature, and that will be where the duds have come from. I don't ever recall seeing "fresh" peanuts for sale in the UK, but maybe Asian stores? Next time I call in one, I will keep an eye open, out of curiosity.

The kids would do far better sticking with Mimosa pudica, or radishes!!   

[David Pilling]

a minimum of 20C for the entire growing period,which wouldn't happen in any greenhouse anywhere in the UK without heating.

That was where I went wrong with most crops this year, it was cold but I didn't keep the greenhouse shut up.

When I had the idea, I thought, peanuts are available everywhere, but then you find they are often roasted. They're not supposed to have long viability.

I still hold out hope, in a good year, maybe in a warmer spot in the UK than here.

Have to mention  Tanganyika groundnut scheme
a failed attempt by the British government to cultivate tracts of its African trust territory Tanganyika (now part of Tanzania) with peanuts.
Launched in the aftermath of World War II by the Labour Party administration of prime minister Clement Attlee,[1] the goal was to produce urgently needed oilseeds on a projected 3 million acres (5,000 sq miles, or over 12,000 km2, an area almost as big as Yorkshire), in order to increase margarine supplies in Britain and increase the profits from the British Empire

Notice they didn't try doing this in Yorkshire.

[Judy Glattstein]

A friend here in New Jersey crops peanuts. In 2019 she dug them in early in October. The tops of the plants had just been blackened, kissed by frost.

She also grows sweet potatoes. And artichokes. As well as tomatoes and green beans and green peas and more.

Some people are just very skilled.

One thing she does which amuses her granddaughter - when the pumpkins are just forming she gently scratches the child's name on the rind. As the pumpkin grows this becomes a brown "scab" on the orange pumpkin. Personalized pumpkin.

[Ron]

Former US president Jimmy Carter was quite successful as a peanut farmer in his home state of Georgia, in the warm American south.

We buy raw peanuts in the shell to feed the blue jays in our yard (scrub jays), who bury them for later.  I started seeing pea-like volunteers in our garden, pulled one up, and was surprised to see the plant growing out of a peanut shell.

Added 10-14:

While staying in Mammoth Lakes, California in early fall, at a rental cabin at 9,000 feet (2,700 meters), we fed peanuts in the shell to a Steller's jay.  This area is near the ski resort of Mammoth Mountain and usually gets many feet of snow each year.  Here they don't bury them in the ground, where they would not be available winter or spring.  Rather, we were surprised to see them wedge them between needles of conifers at least 15 feet (4.6 meters) above the ground.

[CG100]

Some people are just very skilled.

Some of us in the UK spend a lot of time and money on greenhouses for ornamentals, some for for edibles.

There must be plenty of people here growing sweet potatoes as some of the seed companies sell "slips" (rooted early shoots) - they are far easier to grow that way, than from a seed tuber. I have no idea what species or variety, but large or very large crops are routinely possible.

We buy raw peanuts in the shell to feed the blue jays in our yard, who bury them for later.  I started seeing pea-like volunteers in our garden, pulled one up, and was surprised to see the plant growing out of a peanut shell.

That is how they reckon most of British oak woods came about - jays stashing acorns and not needing them during the following winter.
Our jays are extremely secretive and most people have no idea how common they really are (if you know the call, it is very common in lightly-wooded areas), but when the acorns fall, they often get completely distracted by the job of hoarding them and will collect them right beside busy roads and places where people are around.
People are even more surprised at the size and colour of them - reports of a parrot on the loose are not uncommon.

[Judy Glattstein]

This happened many decades ago and in a different state. A bluejay was caching peanuts-in-the-shell in my garden. It would fly in, scrape a little hole, poke in the peanut. Cover it, cock its head to examine the site, perhaps adjust things, and fly off for another peanut.

After it left a titmouse (sparrow size little gray bird, also with a crest) would swoop down, uncover peanut, carry it off to a nearby branch. And eat it.

P.S. My friend grows her peanuts etc in the open garden, not under glass.

About 3 or 4 peanuts into this routine the bluejay got back while the titmouse was thieving the peanut. Oh such squawking, such a contretemps!

I confess I was laughing. But from inside the house, behind a window, so the birds did not notice me, intent as they were on their issue.

P.S. My friend grows her peanuts etc in the open garden, not under cover

[CG100]

The limiting factor for growing warm or tropical climate crops in the UK, will usually be minimum night temperature during summer - even in the warmest areas, over-night will routinely get down to 8-10-12C, even if only briefly around dawn.
Even growing (sweet-) corn isn't always successful, and growing maize, as in stock feed is impossible as it will not fully ripen. Huge areas are grown here, but it is cut as late as possible and the entire green plant chopped for silage - the kernels form and harden, but never dry. A lot is sown uner floating cloche to get as early a start as possible. There is plenty of maize still standing now, but not for much longer.

[David Pilling]

A lot is sown uner floating cloche to get as early a start as possible.

Thanks for that, I've seen transparent plastic in the fields early in the year and not been able to understand what it is.

Plenty of maize around these parts, even though Google says the West coast is marginal. I always assumed it reached maturity - although now you mention it, I've never seen that. Interesting.

Maize mazes are a popular attraction here.

A quote because I didn't know:

"Sweetcorn is a variety of maize with a higher sugar content. Unlike field corn varieties, which are harvested when the kernels are dry and mature and used for grain, sweetcorn is picked when immature and prepared and eaten as a vegetable."

[CG100]

Anyone who has grown sweetcorn will know that the seed is very wrinkled, not plump as is maize, simply because it makes rather little starch. It can be awkward to germinate too, because of the sugars in it which mould very easily.

The moment that a cob is picked, the sugar starts to form starch (starch is just poly-glucose) and the flavour very quickly deteriorates., which always makes me wonder why people buy cobs from supermarkets. If growing it at home, put a pan of water on to boil, then pick the sweetcorn and cook immediately, although I have to say that sweetcorn cooked that quickly tatstes pretty much identical to the best canned corn. I have never eaten it, but suspect that frozen corn isn't great either??

Most years, maize will form grains in the UK but moisture levels will never get anywhere near low enough to harvest just the grains. When cut for silage, the chopped material is very often run though a cracker on the harvester, to split the grains to aid digestion by the cattle.

Maize and sweetcorn like plenty of water and sun to do well. Maybe 12 years ago, we had a drought around here and a field of fodder maize got no higher than maybe 18 inches or so, in the better areas of the field. I don't recall, but suspect that it was just ploughed in.

There is quite a bit of debate about growing maize in the UK - the plants are so far apart that they do not bind the soil so in a wet year, like 2024, it can/will allow erosion, made worse by the way the leaves shed and channel water.

[CG100]

After it left a titmouse (sparrow size little gray bird, also with a crest) would swoop down, uncover peanut, carry it off to a nearby branch. And eat it.

I thought that they were chickadees in NA?

Most people in the UK call them tits, but understand the name titmouse.

Before brexit, I used to keep in touch with several people in Belgium and the Netherlands so learnt more than a few bird names over there - titmice are mees - a blue tit is a pimpelmees. Many Dutch bird names I find extremely "attractive", for reasons that I do not understand - Kluut (pronounced kloot) is an avocet - it just seems so appropriate.......
Some names are just daft though - steltlopers means stilt-walker - we just call them stilts.

[MarkMazer]

After it left a titmouse (sparrow size little gray bird, also with a crest) would swoop down, uncover peanut, carry it off to a nearby branch. And eat it.

The North American Tufted Titmice hoard/cache food in fall and winter like some chickadees and tits (Family Paridae). They remove the seed from it's shell before stashing. We grew peanuts in our CT garden just for the fun of it in light sandy soil at the base of a sunny South facing stone wall. Here in NE North Carolina, peanuts are a row crop and farmers have just started digging them and leaving them to dry in the fields. There is a large peanut processing plant in nearby Edenton and the whole town smells like peanuts. Aflotoxin is a fungal toxin that can contaminate both peanuts and corn crops in humid conditions and great care is taken around here to make sure the crops have the proper moisture content during harvest, storage, and processing.

[Lee Poulsen]

I've grown peanuts in the ground and they're a kind of fun plant to grow. They do like warm weather. But they're not large plants. I'd say they're about the same general size as a bush green bean plant, maybe a little bushier. The flowers are a really nice warm buttery yellow in color. But the thing that surprised me is that the flowers don't bury themselves in the ground as I had read everywhere. The first time I tried growing them I was so disappointed when the flowers were done blooming, the flower and the flower stem wilted and completely died and fell off the plant. For every single flower! That fall when the plants died, I dug one up and dangling from nearly every plant stem was a peanut attached to it by what looked like a root, kind of like a miniature version of a banyan tree. The next year I watched carefully, and after the flower blooms and wilts, the stem falls off, and then what looks like a root starts growing downward from the point on the stem where the flower stem had been attached. This buries itself in the soil and eventually grows a peanut underground.