Peanuts, Not Just From the Store

It's always something. Scary scallions, tainted with E. coli. Terrifying tomatoes, spiked with invisible salmonella. Each new outbreak confirms the wisdom of growing your own food.

But now it's peanut butter, in a jar, cherished by parents as a quick, easy, protein-dense food that kids love to eat. Could you possibly grow that yourself?

An encouraging view of the subject came to me recently from Alice Russell, a Post employee, who grew peanuts last summer in Arlington at the Fort Barnard Community Garden. A fellow community gardener, Jerry Brill, tried his hand, too. They wanted to satisfy their curiosity about a long-season crop often raised in Virginia but rarely by urban gardeners in and around the District. In a four-foot-square section of her plot, Russell sowed raw nuts she bought in a plastic bag at Trader Joe's.

"I had so much fun," Russell exulted. "It was just so interesting. I simply scattered them on the ground, covered them a bit, and every single one grew like crazy. It's a very pretty plant that first bears yellow flowers at the bottom. Then it puts out little pegs that head down into the ground, and the pegs keep coming as long as the plant is there. When I finally pulled them up there were big gobs of peanuts at the ends."

Russell's plants had a lot going for them. She had good, light soil, not clay, which they dislike. She removed the shells but not the skins, soaked the nuts in water overnight before planting them, then worked the soil surface lightly to keep it from forming a crust ("so the pegs could go down") and kept the surface moist. Her nuts were "very tasty" even without roasting, and she had hoped to save some to plant next year. But her granddaughter Carrly found them and ate every one.

You'd need to grow a good-size peanut patch to keep your family in peanut butter for a year, but if you have room, why not? Both Park Seed (http://www.parkseed.com) and Burpee (http://www.burpee.com) sell seed peanuts, and Southern Exposure (http://www.southernexposure.com) carries heirloom varieties. Choose a sunny spot, lightening the soil with peat moss as needed, then plant about 1 1/2 inches deep, six to eight inches apart in the row. When the foliage turns yellow, test a peanut to see whether the inside of the shell has darkened, a sign of ripeness. If the vines don't pull out easily, use a digging fork. Peanuts are great boiled and eaten fresh, but to keep the rest, you must dry and cure them in the shell for a month or two in a warm, dry, rodent-free spot. To roast them, use a rather cool oven (275 degrees) so as not to destroy vitamins. To make peanut butter, use a food processor, meat grinder or hand grain mill.

Even if the specter of salmonella fails to haunt you, you'll find a home peanut supply a tasty improvement over store-bought. Russell, for one, plans to double the size of her patch this spring. Carrly will be delighted.