Gardeners in the Asylum

[jjirons69]

My dad has at least an acre planted, all times of the year. Always has. It used to work me pretty good growing up. He gives away more than we eat. My mom is a chronic canner/jarrer, too. Now that I have kids, it's great getting them out there picking garden peas, picking up plowed potatoes, and all the other "fun" stuff gardens present. I've been trying to get him to plant peanuts for many years, as we all love boiled peanuts and I remember us growing them when I was a kid. Problem was, we never had good crop of nuts for various reasons. Finally he buys into it this year, only to find there's a shortage of Valencia peanuts due to the drought issues last year. Luckily I searched around and found him a 50 lb bag on line, $150 delivered. He now has enough to share with three of my uncles, who also were having problems finding nuts. He has sandy, well-draining soil, so I'm making sure we have an initial dose of potassium-rich fertilizer and a good dose of gypsum when they set flowers. We're going to crush them this year. It's gonna be a great 'I told you so' situation, plus it's good for the kids to see where those tasty boiled peanuts come from.