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Growing Peanuts in a Container
season is done, you’ll harvest all of your peanuts at the same time by pulling the entire plant out of the soil. There are 4 basic varieties of peanuts that have different uses: Virginia, Runner, Spanish, and Valencia. • The Virginia peanut has the largest kernels (seeds) and is the variety you usually eat at a baseball game. • The Runner peanut is medium size and often used for peanut butter. • Spanish and Valencia peanuts have the smallest kernels, but they are the fastest growing. • Valencia peanuts usually have more kernels per pod (three or more) and are sweeter than Spanish. The variety grown in the photos here is Tennessee Red Valencia and it is one of the easiest peanuts to grow.
Materials Needed to Grow Peanuts in a Pot
• A 16- to 20-inch diameter planter • Potting mix & compost combination: 3 parts potting mix to 1 part compost. Do not use potting mix with added fertilizer. • 3 Raw (not cooked) Tennessee Red Valencia peanut seeds with red seed coat intact
Planting Peanuts
By Michaelle Scanlon and Deborah Lessne If you haven’t seen peanuts growing, you’re in for an adventure! Peanuts are one of the most interesting things you can plant in a planter. The scientific name for the peanut is Arachis hypogaea. “Hypo” means “below” and “gaea” means “earth or ground,” which is where the peanut seeds grow—below the ground. Many people are surprised to learn that peanuts aren’t nuts at all—they are actually legumes just like kidney beans, black beans, and soybeans. But the way peanuts grow is even more surprising. It is common for plants to have a flower that receives pollen carried by a visiting animal, insect, or from the breeze. It is also common for the new fruit to develop where the flower received the 14
WASHINGTON GARDENER
JUNE 2022
pollen. The peanut does something completely different. For one thing, the peanut flower can pollinate itself—no bees needed. Once the peanut flower is pollinated, it sends out a “peg” that bends down toward the soil. The peg looks a lot like a new shoot coming out of the stem of the peanut plant. The peg doesn’t stop when it reaches the soil, it continues to grow, and the new peanut will develop at the end of the peg—below ground! Peanuts like long, hot, humid summers so our region is a good place for this crop. It will take 110 days for your little peanut seed to sprout, flower, send out pegs, and develop ripe peanuts. That’s almost four months, so, you’ll have to be patient. When the growing
Start with the calendar: Peanuts need a long, hot growing season so you want to make sure you start your plants a couple of weeks after the last frost date (the last frost is around May 15 in our area) and when the soil temperature is 65-70 degrees. This will be about June 1. Mark your planting date on your calendar. Count another 10 days and write, “sprout week.” This is the week when you should see your seeds starting to sprout out of the soil. Count 30 more days (40 days after planting) and write, “flower week.” This is when you should see the first flowers appear. Count another 60 days (110 days after planting) and write “possible harvest week.” We’ll talk about how to know when your peanuts are ready later in this article. Get your planter ready. If your planter has a saucer, remove it. Peanuts like well-drained soil and you don’t want the planter to sit in any water.
