Peanuts and Garbanzos

Gophers in the peanuts....this is an occasion to monitor the progress of a subsurface crop if there ever was one. I had to pull up a few of the nutty legumes to check on what the actual peanuts are looking like at this time in the season. Especially before the gophers get them all...


Here is what I found upon investigating underground. Since the last post on the peanut crop, the plants have flowered and sent their reproductive parts underground where the familiar little nodules of crunchy snacks we know so well are forming, growing and thriving. Don't forget, if you want to see this in action, you must walk all the way to the back of the field. It is worth it.


Now here is another unique leguminous crop (pea family, nitrogen fixing). The garbanzo beans in the Tierra Vegetable fields come in 2 colors. Traditional white/beige beans and a more unusual black version of the garbanzo you are used to finding in a can or dried and packaged in a plastic bag. Fore-go canned goods, plastic wrapped and distributed beans from unknown sources and come to your local farm for these ordinary and entirely out of the ordinary culinary ingredients.

Black Garbanzo Beans! Another example of the diversity of vegetable ingredients constantly surprising us with something new and different. These beans are a little smaller than your traditional garbanzo and ought to be fun to experiment with in comparison.

And I leave you with the garbanzo bean. It is really not a huge crop of any of these legumes I have listed here, but they were tried and seem to have succeeded to some extent. See if you might find them for sale as the winter months come on.

Growing Peanuts

One must trudge all the way to the back of the field, 17 acres long, where it seems like there is nothing more to see before you have arrived....here you will find a small stand of peanuts growing.


If you are interested in the growing aspects of plants and food production, this is a worthwhile trek to see a less commonly selected garden vegetable/nut/snack? As Wayne explained it upon my return from the back of the field yesterday and as my Google research confirms, the growing habit of this plant is quite unique and at an interesting time right now within that process.

The peanut plant is now flowering above ground. Very vibrant little yellow pea/legume flowers are decorating the above ground foliage....soon these flowers will disappear though. Below ground is where the fruit/nut develops. Soon these flowers will disappear beneath the soil surface to complete their next phase of reproduction. Eventually, after their long and hot season is completed, edible nuts will be pulled up from underground.