Gadenin日本語Get the appThe plant will not tell you, so dig one up
There is no reliable above-ground signal for peanut ripeness. Yellowing leaves can mean maturity, or nitrogen shortage, or leaf spot, or simply a cold night. The only honest method is to lift one whole plant, wash the soil off a dozen pods, and look at them. Do the first test dig about ninety days after the first flowers opened, and repeat weekly. Because pegs are set over a period of six to eight weeks, the pods on one plant are never all at the same stage, and what you are judging is the majority.
Split a pod open lengthways with your thumbnail and look at the inside of the shell rather than the outside. In an immature pod the inner wall is white and smooth. As the pod matures it develops dark veins and then darkens overall to a brown or blackish stain, and at the same time the papery skin around the kernel colors up and the kernel itself fills the cavity completely. When about seventy percent of the pods on your test plant show that darkened interior, the crop is ready.
| Sign in the test pod | What it means | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Inner shell white, kernel soft and watery | Weeks away | Wait and dig another plant in ten days |
| Inner shell veined, kernel filling out | Approaching maturity | Test again in a week, begin drying the soil off |
| Inner shell dark brown, kernel skin colored | Mature pod | Ready once most pods look like this |
| Pods dropping off the peg when lifted | Over-mature | Lift immediately; you are losing pods into the soil |
| Kernel sprouting inside the shell | Too late, ground too warm and wet | Lift now and cure hard; expect losses |
Lift the whole plant, do not dig for pods
Peanuts are harvested as a whole plant, in one go, and never picked over. The pods are attached to pegs that break easily and a pod left in the ground is unfindable. Choose a dry day after several days without rain, when the soil crumbles rather than smears. Push a fork into the ground a foot (30 cm) out from the crown, deeper than you think necessary, and lever the entire root mass upward rather than pulling on the stems. Then grip the base of the plant and lift it clear with the pods hanging beneath it.
Shake the plant gently to drop the loose soil and turn it over to inspect. Some pods will inevitably stay behind; go through the hole with your hands and recover them, and lay them separately because detached pods cure faster and must be watched more closely. Do not wash the crop. Water at this point drives moisture back into shells you are about to spend three weeks drying, and washed pods are far more likely to mold in curing.
- Loosen from a distance Fork in a foot (30 cm) away from the crown and lever. Forking close to the stem spears the pods and cuts pegs.
- Lift by the crown, not the leaves Take hold of the thick base of the plant. Pulling on foliage strips the top off and leaves the entire pod cluster in the ground.
- Shake, do not knock A gentle shake removes loose soil. Banging the plant against the fork snaps pegs and scatters pods you will never find.
- Search the hole by hand Feel through the loose soil where the plant sat. On a good plant five to ten pods detach during lifting and they are all worth recovering.
Cure hanging, with the pods still on the plant
Curing is not optional and it is not the same as drying in the sun. Hang the lifted plants upside down, pods outward, in a place that is airy, out of rain and out of direct sun, at a temperature somewhere around 70 to 85F (21 to 29C). A shed with the door propped open, an open-sided barn, or a porch under cover all work. Space the plants so air moves between them. Leave them for one to two weeks, until the stems are dry and the pods rattle faintly when shaken.
Then strip the pods from the plants by hand and spread them in a single layer on mesh trays or slatted crates for a further two to three weeks in the same conditions. The pods are finished when a kernel snaps cleanly rather than bending, and the papery skin slips off easily under your thumb. Only at that point should they go into storage. Peanuts stored before they are properly cured develop mold inside the shell, and moldy peanuts should be discarded rather than salvaged.
Never cure peanuts in a sealed container, a plastic bag or a warm damp room. Moisture trapped in the shell allows a storage mold to develop that makes the nuts unsafe to eat, and it cannot be seen from the outside of an intact pod.
Storing, saving seed and what to write down
Store cured peanuts in their shells in mesh bags, paper sacks or open baskets somewhere cool and dry. In the shell they keep for close to a year; shelled kernels lose quality within a couple of months and should be kept in the refrigerator. Roast only what you will eat within a few weeks, because roasting shortens keeping life considerably. Sort out any pod that feels light, looks stained or smells musty, and throw it away rather than risking the batch.
Set aside your best-filled, largest pods for next year and leave them unshelled in a cool dry place until sowing day. Write down the date you lifted, the number of days from first flower to that lift, and how the test digs read in the weeks beforehand. Note the position of each row as well, because peanut should not follow itself or any other legume for three years, and next spring the bed will look identical to every other bed.
- Check the snap test before storing Bite or press a kernel. It should break with a clean snap. Any bend or chewiness means it needs another week of curing.
- Store in the shell, in something that breathes Mesh or paper, never sealed plastic. Cool and dry beats cold and damp; a refrigerator is only for shelled kernels.
- Keep seed pods separate and unshelled Label the best pods as seed and leave them intact. Shelling early is the commonest reason home-saved peanut seed fails.