- Americans eat about 3 pounds of peanut butter per person each year, totaling about 500 million pounds... enough to cover the floor of the Grand Canyon.
- Our family ate about 13 lbs of peanut butter per person last year!
Considering our family's love for peanut butter, we decided to try growing our own peanuts. We discovered last year that shelling them is a whole lot of work to do by hand, so this year we are just going to roast them in the shell and eat as we go.
In June, my hard working friend Julie and I, along with the help of the kids, planted peanuts in the summer heat. Peanuts grow well here. They require very little attention and they were the last thing the grasshoppers decided to eat. This year we had five rows that were 50 feet long and guess how many pounds of peanuts we got? A whopping 16 lbs.
Did you know you can buy raw organic peanuts in the shell for $4.99 per lb (non organic is $1.79). That means we "earned" about $79.84. Now this is really interesting.....1 pound of peanuts in the shell will yield two-thirds of a pound shelled, that means we really harvested 10.5 lbs of actual nut. Most jars are 16 oz (1 lb) so we could potentially make 10 jars of peanut butter. A Santa Cruz Organic jar of peanut butter costs $5.12. So, we could make $51.20 in peanut butter. So basically, if we were to sell our peanuts, we'd make more selling the raw peanut in the shell than if we processed it into peanut butter! That's really interesting.
Now, I guess I should note that if you buy already shelled peanuts and make your own peanut butter it is cheaper than if you bought it at the store. Taking this website's prices, you could buy peanuts at $2.96 per pound. Our average spending on a 16 ounce jar of peanut butter was $3.64 (sometimes there were really good deals as low as 2.48 a jar and sometimes it was $5.49 a jar). That means instead of a 16 ounce jar of peanut butter costing $3.64, you could save $1.16 per jar. Times that by 68 and you've saved $79! Worth it? Umm...maybe.
 |
| Her plant does not have any leaves on it because the grasshoppers defoliated it. |
Anyway, I paid the kids to help me. I had to come up with a way for Orion to make money because he accidentally broke the rear view mirror in the truck (for the 3rd time). So he needed to earn about $2.00 to buy new glue to glue it back on. I paid them $.10 per plant they dug up with the digging fork or tore the peanuts off. So he only needed to do 20 plants. I think he was a little shy of 20 so they also helped me finish digging up the sweet potatoes and I called it even.
After a couple of plants they wanted to start playing (only in their minds they were "working" - digging with the fork) so I had them do 5 plants, then they could play, and when I said "beep" they would come back and do 5 more plants. They worked much faster with that strategy.
 |
| This picture is from this year (Orion is almost 5 and Omega 6 1/2 -- 2012) |
 |
| This is last year 2011 (Orion is almost 4, Omega is 5 1/2). |
I'm never quite sure if all the work is worth it monetarily, but the lessons to be gained are invaluable. I always like to review with my children the "laws of harvest".
- You harvest what you sow
- You harvest more than you sow
- You harvest in a different season than you sow
- "Wow, so THAT'S how peanuts grow! (Seriously, when you buy peanut butter on a weekly basis, have you ever considered how they grew in order to get into that little jar?)
- "Wow, I really appreciate the farmers who took the time to make me peanut butter!"
- Kids like dirt. And they like work. It builds confidence and common sense in them when they know they are contributing.
 |
| This is them "going back to work" (aka. play) |
"The very best legacy which parents can leave their children is a knowledge of useful labor and the example of a life characterized by disinterested benevolence."
{Adventist Home, 390}
This is great! I wish I had those kinds of experiences growing up :) Although, my mom did grow chives in a window-box once... that worked okay, until summer came. And we had some jasmine plants in a pot. Same problem.
ReplyDeleteOnce, though, she threw out some cantaloupe seeds in the alley, and it just so happened that there was a pipe that dripped in one particular spot. A cantaloupe plant grew there! It bloomed once or twice, but never produced anything. (A sandy patch of alley? Who can blame it?)
Living with the S's taught me so many of those valuable lessons that your kids are getting early. They are very fortunate.
Well, I always LOVE the pictures! And I learned several things as well. I had no idea that you loved statistics. Or that you guys ate THAT MUCH peanut butter (tee hee). One would think that with 5 rows 50 ft long, you would get more than 16 lbs of peanuts.
ReplyDeleteI liked your 3 points:
You harvest what you sow
You harvest more than you sow
You harvest in a different season than you sow
And then your personalizes lessons learned. Seeing just how something grows and becomes food for them to eat. And an appreciation for what others actually went through for them to get something that they obviously enjoy so much. And that they not only like to play in the dirt, but they actually like to work and are learning common sense. There seem to be fewer and fewer people out there that actually have much "common sense". Thanks for empowering our grandchildren to be some of them. And who doesn't need confidence built up in them, layer by layer? Thanks for your steadfastness and willingness to teach, even though in some ways it would just be easier and perhaps cheaper to "just let someone else go through all of that work and hassle." Now they know and have done it themselves, so they can get on in the world just a little bit more self sufficiently now than before, relying upon the Creator who gives seed, sun, water, soil, strength and muscle and the opportunity to cooperate with Him on things both large and small.
I love you Hope, thanks for sharing, Mom