Peanut Puzzle

Another unpleasant surprise in the vegetable garden -- my peanut plants failed to produce. Whot hoppen?

Well, let's go back to the beginning. In my blog post for October 10, 2010, I described my first peanut crop. I planted Valencia peanuts in early June (early in the rainy season) in my still-unfinished vegetable garden. At that time the soil was a heavy clay loam and had no raised beds (peanuts like a sandy loam). About halfway through their growing season I created some raised beds with much improved soil, and transplanted the peanut plants, which, by then, were getting waterlogged. I didn't hold out much hope for them, but around the first of October I dug the plants up and, voila, I had a peanut crop. I saved the harvested peanuts and replanted them in much improved raised beds in early November. My second plants looked much better than the first and produced lots of blooms. At 130 days I dug them up. No peanuts!!!

I got out my vegetable growing guidebook -- Home Vegetable Gardening, published by the Clemson University Extension Department -- and consulted the section on peanuts, just like I had done before I planted. Under the section on watering, I found the following passage, "Water is the most common limiting factor in peanut production." So, I checked my rainfall records. The first crop got an incredible 70 inches of rain during their growing cycle. The second crop received 33 inches, so, about half as much as the first crop. However, 33 inches of rain should be more than enough rain, and as the dry season set in, I watered the peanuts sometimes as much as three times a week. So, what other factor might have entered into the equation? The wind. November through March are very windy months here. Sometimes we experienced periods of a week or more with winds ranging from 10 - 34 miles per hour. It's my guess that the high winds dessicated the soil. The only thing that still puzzles me is that the other vegetable crops did relatively well during this windy period.

So, I may never know for sure what happened. But I have come up with a strategy -- PLAN A: plant peanuts in March or April so they will benefit from low winds, and the rains that usually begin in May; and PLAN B: if planting during the dry (i.e., windy) season, cover the soil with a heavy layer of organic mulch.

Happy gardening!