Gadenin日本語Get the appThe shape of the season
A peanut crop runs 120 to 150 frost-free days from sowing to lifting, plus three to five weeks of curing afterwards. It divides naturally into four phases: establishment from sowing to a foot-wide plant, a short preparation window ending at the first flower, a long pegging and pod-fill phase of eight to ten weeks during which the soil must not be touched, and a dry-down and harvest phase at the end. The middle two boundaries are the ones that matter, and they are set by the plant rather than by any date.
Because the schedule keys off the first flower, that is the single observation to make each day from about week five. Everything downstream, the calcium dressing, the end of cultivation, the first test dig and the likely lifting week, is counted from it. Gardeners who miss that date spend the rest of the season guessing at ripeness and usually lift a fortnight too early.
| Phase | Roughly when | The work | The decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| Establishment | Sowing to week 4 | Keep the row moist, protect from cold, weed freely | Was the soil warm enough, or should you resow |
| Preparation | Weeks 5 to 7 | Final weeding, hilling, gypsum as flowers open | Hill now, because after this it is too late |
| Pegging and pod fill | Weeks 8 to 16 | Water steadily, watch leaves, touch nothing else | Whether disease means bringing harvest forward |
| Dry-down and harvest | Weeks 16 to 20 | Stop watering, test dig weekly, lift and cure | Do seventy percent of pods read mature yet |
Establishment: warmth first, then leave it alone
Sow into ground that has held above 65F (18C) at four inches (10 cm) deep, an inch and a half (4 cm) down, six to eight inches (15 to 20 cm) apart. Expect emergence in eight to twelve days. During this phase the plant is asking for very little: an evenly moist row, no nitrogen and no competition. Weed as often as you like, because this is one of only two windows in the season when hoeing is safe and it will not come again.
By week four the plants should be branching out from the crown and starting to spread sideways. If they are pale and sulking, the usual cause is cold soil rather than hunger; resist the urge to feed. A cloche or a strip of black plastic laid between the rows lifts soil temperature and does more good than fertilizer at this stage.
The preparation window is the one that closes
Around weeks five to seven the plants reach about a foot (30 cm) across and flower buds appear in the leaf axils. This is the hinge of the whole season. Do the final thorough weeding, hill loose soil up around each crown to a broad low mound, spread the branches out over it, and work a handful of gypsum per plant into the surface as the first flowers open. Then put the hoe away for the rest of the year.
Once flowering begins, pegs follow within about two weeks. From the first peg onward every operation involving soil costs pods, so anything you were planning to do to the ground must be finished before then. That includes laying paths, setting up any watering line, and putting in rodent barriers, all of which are far easier now than they will be in a month.
- Weed to the boundary, thoroughly Clear a foot and a half (45 cm) around each plant completely. Weeds left now are weeds you will live with until harvest.
- Hill with fine, loose soil Draw two to three inches (5 to 8 cm) of crumbly soil up around each crown into a broad mound, then break up any lumps by hand.
- Apply calcium as flowers open Work a generous handful of gypsum per plant into the surface of the mound and water it in. Later applications will not fill the pods.
- Install anything you need before pegging Paths, boards, drip line, rodent barriers. In two weeks the bed becomes a place you can only look at.
Pod fill and finish: watch, water, then stop
Through weeks eight to sixteen the plant flowers continuously and sends down peg after peg. Your entire job is an inch (25 mm) of water a week applied at the base in the morning, and a weekly look at the lower leaves for spotting. Do not weed, do not hoe, do not kneel in the bed and do not add mulch. If weeds are genuinely overwhelming, snip them off at the surface with scissors rather than pulling, which lifts pegs with the roots.
Around week sixteen stop watering and let the bed dry down. Begin test digging about ninety days after the first flower and repeat weekly until roughly seventy percent of pods on a sample plant show a darkened inner shell. Lift the whole crop on a dry day, cure the plants hanging for one to two weeks, then strip the pods and cure them a further two to three weeks before storing. Write down the first flower date, the lift date and the interval between them; that number, in your own garden, is the most useful thing you will have next season.
If frost threatens before the pods are mature, lift anyway. Frozen foliage collapses onto the crown and the pods start to rot within days, while immature nuts lifted and cured properly are at least edible.