Growing Peanuts

Have you ever considered growing your own peanuts? Peanuts are a healthy and delicious snack food that is easy to grow in the home garden.

Have you ever considered growing your own peanuts? Peanuts are a healthy and delicious snack food that is easy to grow in the home garden.

Although commonly classified as a nut on store shelves, peanuts are actually a legume–part of the same family as beans and peas. Peanuts have a long growing season, lasting about 120 to 150 days, so you need to live in a warmer climate–at least zone 5–to allow them enough time to mature.

Like beans and peas, you don’t need special seeds to grow peanuts. The seeds are the peanuts located inside the pods/shells. For planting, use fresh, unroasted peanuts. Plant peanuts 1-1/2 inches deep in hills when soil temperatures are about 65 F. They like sandy well drained soil and lots of water.

As the plants grow, they’ll look a lot like pea plants, with similar flowers, but peanut plants grow more in a bush shape than a vine. Expect to see your first peanut shoots about 4 to 6 weeks after planting. Peanuts will be ready to harvest in the fall, when the foliage turns yellow. Harvest peanuts with a potato fork and allow the nuts to dry for a couple weeks before removing the pods for oven-roasting.