Growing the Peanuts
From economy point of view, growing peanuts it’s not quite a brilliant idea. Because the price of peanuts is relatively low. But if you like the idea about teaching your kids about gardening, growing peanuts will be a good alternative. Kids usually love the opportunity to create, and believe it or not gardening is a creative art that can easily be developed. Planting the seeds, growing them, harvesting and eat the peanuts together will become a very exciting experience for the whole family.
After you prepare the proper gardening equipment that can be used by your kids and lecturing them a little about gardening, then you can start with planting the peanut with the reddish brown skin on it or even the entire peanut with hull. Make you plantings 1 to 2 inches deep and make sure you plant them in well drained soil keeping the peanuts warm until it germinates which it will in about 7 to 9 days. 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. This is a great watching time for kids because in about 4 days a stem will grow from the flower and head down into the soil. 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 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.
The weather is not something you can controlled. But at least you can keep your eye on the rain. If they need water, then water them, but do not over water them. At last, the kids 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.