This is the first year I try to grow peanuts. We had some early frosts recently and although my peanuts survived those well under double layer floating row cover, I still harvested today one plant as a test. Because I don't have previous experiences with the peanut, I'm asking for help, to determine, if it is too soon to dig my harvest out or not? I personally think, that it may be too soon, as peanut pods are still whitish color and uppers are nice and green. I planted my peanuts on April 20, so they have been growing 5 months now. The harvest is not so good (as was expected because of rather chilly summer here), most of the pods have only one pea, just two of them have 2 peas in the pod. One pod was damaged by a wireworm, that is a nasty pest here in sandy soils. But luckily no rodent damage so far. At least I was hoping to get my own fresh seeds for next year. This year I used peeled peas from the food store. I know, that I have to keep the pods on the plants for some weeks after digging plants out. And it should be relatively warm and dry place, where to store those plants this period. In October it can turn chilly and moist here, so I am littlebit worried, if I can let ripen those pods in the shed then.
I tried growing peanuts in the Vancouver area many years ago, and they didn't even come close to ripening. That was before floating row covers were invented, but I did use polyethelene tunnel cloches then. I think that you should keep them going as long as possible; and a solid plastic cover will work better than fabric, because it will keep the rain off and provide more heat.
Thanks for your suggestion! I will add a PE layer today. I usually use it for my cucumbers only. As I have very sandy soil here, there is actually no big risk of soaking my plants by coming rains, but peanut pods may still get mold when sitting in the moist and cold soil and I have very limited ability to recognise aflatoxines. The air temperature will drop below zero next week already.
Here is something I just thought of, with no research to back it up. Rain falling on a crop under a row cover will wet the vegetation and be absorbed by the fabric, as well as the soil. When the rain stops, evaporative cooling will reduce the air temperature around the crop; so, a solid cover that keeps the plants, soil, and inside of the cover dry should warm up much faster than a fabric cover. Even though I haven't thought of this effect before, I've been using PE film covers during cool weather and fabric row covers only when it's warmer, especially after accidentally cooking a few crops under the PE. Of course, the timing varies with the crop, since some prefer cooler temperatures.
That is a good point! Now those harvested peanut pods look more like normal peanut shells , after just few hours of drying, the shell wrinkeled/crumpeled and darkened somewhat, so it is not white but light beige. Some pods collapsed and feel empty. I opened one pod with a single peanut and ate it. The shell was thin and rather soft, it was very easy to open the pod. I have bought unshelled peanuts before, and their shells have been much much thicker. The peanut was large, white, filled the pod, had very pleasant taste - it was larger, sweeter, milder and softer than those, brought from the food store. Its consistency was in grain ripeness scale between dough and mature, maybe more towards mature than dough. I have never eaten fresh peanuts before, so can compare only with dried peanuts from store. I try to postpone my harvest few weeks, unless there will be a killing frost here. Peanuts have now triple layer floating row cover for thermal insulation (and to avoid condensation to the PE layer) + PE layer on top to prevent rains wetting the soil and plants. Thanks again for suggestions! I hope, that I will get a few seeds, that have better germination rate and germinating energy, than of those from the store, and next year my peanuts grow faster. This year they had very slow growth at start.
