I know peanuts are very cheap to buy so why bother growing them? Well if you have a kid or two and want to teach them gardening and happen to live in a zone that peanuts grow, then that is your answer.
Kids really are inquisitive and love to learn things. Those times spent with them on this type of project are stuff that memories are made of. Kids love the opportunity to create and believe it or not gardening is a creative art that can easily be developed.
So consider a peanut project. Go to your local super market and buy a bag of raw peanuts NOT the roasted ones since these will not grow. Raw peanuts are what you and your young gardener will plant after the last frost for your area and they will need to stay underground for 140 days in warm sandy soil. If you do not have sandy soil or live in a warm area and still want to do this peanut project with your child then do some inside in a couple of small containers on your window ledge out of drafts.
Let you child keep a peanut project log, letting the young gardener know that the peanut plant has a Latin name, (Arachis hypogea) and that the peanut is a legume, explaining what a legume is, that the peanut is a native to South America and perhaps you and the child can do some research at your local library or on your home computer, should you have one, about how the peanut made its way to the United States and especially the Southern states. While you are researching together you might run across interesting information about George Washington Carver and all the uses for peanuts he discovered. Point out the health benefits of the peanut, it's vitamin and fiber content and have them note them in their logs. Encourage your child to exercise their artist talents by including a box of colored pencils with each log and let them make drawings of the planted peanut's progress.
At this junction it is a good thing to explain about weeds and that in order to have anything grow well the weeds must be pulled out by the young gardeners and that goes for peanuts also.
If you are planting outside you can plant the entire peanut with hull or just the peanut with the reddish brown skin on it. Make you plantings 1 to 2 inches deep and make sure you plant them in well drained soil keeping the peanuts moist and warm until it germinates which it will in about 7 to 9 days.
If you are doing containers then perhaps your project might be a half dozen pots with 3 pots of peanuts hull and all and 3 pots of peanuts shelled and just the reddish brown skin peanuts. Perhaps if you have more than 2 children doing this project you might have one plant the peanuts hull and all and the other one plant just the peanuts with the skin on it. Make an interesting game of it. Label the containers with the child's name and whether it is a shell plant or a hull plant.
Once the peanut sends out shoots it will eventually grow upwards of 2 feet tall. It will develop small yellow flowers that will be between ½ inch to 1.5 inches long and the flowers will bloom for only half a day, so alert the kids to this and keep a digital camera handy if they happen to bloom while the are in school or away from the garden or house.
This is a great watching time for kids because in about 4 days a stem which is also called a peg will grow from the flower and head down into the soil. Its Magic Time! This is where the seed pods will grow, at the end of the stem and those seed pods will be peanuts in the shell. This process usually takes about 90 days from planting, but as I said above the original planted peanuts need to stay underground for a total of 140 days before you are to harvest the new crop which is about a total of 130 days from sprout to harvest. So have your peanut planters keep a calendar in their peanut logs.
So if you are doing container planting the gallon bucket pots are good for your project. Should you be doing it out in the garden, no worry! Keep your eye on the rain if you are growing them outside. If they need water, then water them, but do not over water them. In your containers inside, the same deal, keep them moist but don't drown them.
Now comes the fun part for kids. They get to harvest them and remember that the whole plant needs to be pulled up, sometimes with the help of a broad tines spading fork and since peanuts need to cure the kids usually get to hang them on strong string from the garage rafters so keep them out of the paths where family and friends enter in the house should you happen to have an attached garage. It will take about seven days for them to cure.
Now the kids can roast them with adult supervision and eat them. You can roast them in a conventional oven or your microwave one and it will only take about 15 to 25 minutes depending on your oven.
If you decide to shell your peanuts and remove the skins you can freeze the raw shelled peanuts overnight and the skins will easily slip off between your fingers or you can roast them on a cookie sheet in your oven at 350 degrees F for 3 to 5 minutes, let them cool and again the skins will slip right off and I like these two methods better than the boiling water method which it to blanch your shelled raw peanuts for about 3 minutes in boiling water, drain them and set them on some paper towels to dry.
If you decide not to shell your raw peanuts you can leave them in their shell. I personally like to leave them in the shell because to me part of the magic of eating peanuts, especially warm ones is shelling them, mess and all!
Then you can put either your shelled or unshelled raw peanuts only one layer deep in a large shallow baking pan or cookie sheet that has sides. Shelled peanuts are roasted at 350 degrees F for about 15 to 20 minutes and unshelled peanuts are roasted for 20 to 25 minutes.
For roasting in a microwave oven you need one that is at least 700 watts. Mix up some cold water in which you have placed ½ teaspoon of salt and put your shelled or unshelled peanuts in for 1 minute mixing it up well. Quickly drain your peanuts in a colander and shake well. Sprinkle about another ½ teaspoon of salt on the wet peanuts while you continue shaking over your sink. Put your peanuts on a microwave safe pie plate or shallow dish. Microwave on high for 2.5 minutes and then stop and stir the peanut up and then microwave for an additional 2.5 minutes. Should you desire darker roasted peanuts, stir your peanuts again and microwave for another 30 seconds, check them, if you want darker do one more 30 second cooking.
There are more ways to season peanuts than I can think of and perhaps that may be another article.
Should you wind up with a bumper crop from your garden you should keep your raw peanuts in a dry, cool place below 70 degrees F. I keep peanuts in my freezer in a good tight container and they will keep indefinitely that way until you need them. It is really nice to have a family affair of roasting raw peanuts on a winter's evening and the taste of warm peanuts is very special. To say nothing of how proud your kids will be of growing these and how proud you will be of them for learning some thing really neat and perhaps useful in their future. I bet when they go back to school and have to write a report on "What I did during my summer vacation" their reports will surely be unique.
Author's note: Peanuts do not reseed themselves as they have a life cycle of only one year since they are annuals and you have to re-plant your seeds each year.
"Tread the Earth Lightly" and in the meantime… May your day be filled with…
Peace, Light and Love,
Author's note: This article was originally written for GreenThumbArticles.com
