Grow Great Goobers, Anywhere

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Spanish peanuts produce small, rounded nuts with fine flavor and a crisp texture that makes them ideal for oil-roasted cocktail nuts or for use in candy making. Maturing about 110 days after planting. Spanish peanuts have an erect growth habit, and they tolerate drought well enough to he groan commercially in Texas. Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Runners are the peanut butter makers of the southeastern peanut belt, which stretches across northern Florida, southern Georgia and southern Alabama. Maturing in 130 to 150 days, disease-resistant varieties such as 'Southern Runner' produce medium sized kernels, two to a pod, beneath plants that have a spreading growth habit. Runners need plenty of rain and warm weather, but they are usually very- tough, vigorous plants.

The seeds of Virginia peanuts are so big that they're called the Cadillac of peanuts. Grown mostly in Virginia and North Carolina, Virginia peanut plants look similar to runners. Like runners, Virginia peanuts need 130 to 150 days of warm weather, and there are usually two large seeds within each pod. Most of the commercially grown varieties were developed in North Carolina, with romantic names such as 'NC6' and 'NC11.' These are the big peanuts found in snack foods and trail mixes; they also are often sold as freshly roasted peanuts.

Planning for Peanuts

The perfect soil for peanuts is sandy, loose and well-drained, with at least 18 inches of topsoil over subsoil that's neither rock nor hardpan. Peanuts will grow in clay loam, but small clay particles stick to the textured surfaces of mature peanut pods, leaving mottles that mar the beauty of the shells. The peanuts inside are just fine: You might not be successful selling peanuts grown in clay, but you shouldn't have any problem eating them.

Think carefully about where you plant peanuts in your garden, because they are sensitive to rotations. Plant peanuts after corn, wheat or another small grain, but never after potatoes or beans, which host several diseases that can infect peanuts. In an intensely managed, year-round vegetable garden, plant peanuts after winter greens such as turnips or kale.

Because peanuts fix most of their own nitrogen they don't need much fertilizer, but they do need abundant calcium along with boron, zinc and other minor nutrients. These are easily supplied by working a couple of inches of compost or rotted manure into the soil prior to planting. For added calcium, amend the soil with gypsum, a rock powder, at the rate of 15 pounds per 1,000 square feet. In extremely acidic soils some lime may be needed as well. Peanuts prefer a slightly acidic soil, between 5.8 pH and 6.5 pH.

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