☮ A Peace Offering from the Squirrels? Growing Peanuts in Containers 🥜

Over the years I have started to "strongly dislike" those fuzzy little bastards. As every gardener trying to grow your own food at home knows, even the cutest of critters become Enemy #1 when it comes to defending your crops.

We can all agree that squirrels are cute, butterflies are beautiful, king anoles look bad-ass, but as soon as they wander into my garden - it's WAR!

I have had a long standing battle with the squirrels ever since I started growing food here, they are smart, sneaky, and really aggravating. They dig up the plants trying to bury acorns, chew at the base of stems and stalks just for a few drops of sweet sap that then kills the whole plant, and of course steal tomatoes and strawberries. Part of the problem is I know some of the neighbors feed them crackers and bread. I would see them run along the top of our fences with full slices of bread or a mouth full of crackers. Like REALLY?!

What to do? At first you "shoo" them away, then you chase them, then you toss things at them to scare them, then they learn to ignore you and call out that annoying territorial alert noise they make while almost daring you to come at them. That's okay... I have a long distance weapon - THE HOSE! As it turns out, squirrels hate being wet and/or being sprayed in the face by the hose. So over time, and many hosings, they have learned to stay clear of my gardens - at least when they see me or think I am around. :-) I don't want to really hurt them, so this was the best solution and it seems to have worked.

I have my suspicions.

This morning my son asked me what I was growing in the small pot we have sitting in the front garden as we were leaving to bring him to camp. "Nothing", I said. As I turned to look I noticed there actually was something growing and I had no idea what it was. As I showed a few days ago, my front garden is empty waiting on new plants and as of August 6, there was nothing growing in this pot. I told him I didn't know and that I would check it out later in the day.

"Empty" pots that I grew Red Chard in last season.

This afternoon I remembered I needed to investigate what was growing in the pot out front. I did not recognize the leaves as anything I grew in the past to be from left over seeds or root sprouts. I gently dug down to see what the root and seed looked like and what do ya know... it's a peanut.

My automatic response was a like a scene from "Seinfeld" when he suspected Newman was involved... clinching my first - "Squirrels!"

Yep, it's a peanut shell buried in there.

For an instant I was irritated, then I thought to myself, well I've never grown peanuts before, this could be interesting to see what happens. So I quickly did some research on growing peanuts and as it turns out they are perfect for where I live.

Peanuts are a tropical plant (didn't know that), that like loose well-drained soil, they handle drought and heat well, and don't require much in the way of additional fertilizers as they grow. The time to harvest is 90-110 days and the indication that the peanut pods are developing is the time they are producing their little yellow flowers. Once the leaves and stems start to yellow and die back, it's time to harvest. (So says Wikipedia and BalconyGardenWeb.com)

Peanuts plant as of August 9, 2017 - 4PM EST

So there you have it. Perhaps the squirrels have made me a peace offering with the gift of peanuts, yeah probably not. I'm sure I will have to defend my new peanut crop from them in the next few months as they try to take back what they think is theirs. Such is the never-ending cycle of gardening life. But I'm happy to see how this works out.

I hope you will follow along with this new and unplanned adventure in growing peanuts at home.

The squirrel and peanut images I got from wiki, and put it together with my sunset sky photo and peace image.

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Thanks for reading, now get out there and get GROWING!