For Zach Shelley, green peanut season begins long before customers pull into his farm looking for a bushel. It starts in the spring, when he plants the first seed and begins carefully scheduling additional plantings so fresh peanuts will be available throughout the late summer and fall.
Shelley returned to farming in 2007, working alongside his father and cousin before branching out on his own around 2018. With approximately 200 acres available, he knew a traditional row-crop operation would make it difficult to remain profitable.
“I was really just trying to find something that made more per acre,” Shelley said. “I didn’t really want any more land. I just wanted more money per acre.”
That search led him to green peanuts.
Shelley began growing green peanuts around 2019, but his interest in the crop started much earlier. A lifelong fan of boiled peanuts, he often struggled to find the quality he wanted. Some vendors used dried peanuts, while others sold varieties he did not prefer.
“I’ve always boiled my own peanuts,” Shelley said. “I like to get good peanuts so when you grab a handful, there may be one bad one out of 15. That’s the market I was going after. I wanted to have good quality.”
Today, Shelley grows runner-type peanuts on irrigated ground and sells them directly to customers. Runner peanuts are the variety traditionally grown throughout much of the Wiregrass, and for many of his customers, their flavor brings back memories of the peanuts their parents or grandparents grew.
“A lot of the customers I have want runner peanuts because that’s what they remember from growing up,” Shelley said. “To me, you just can’t beat the taste of a runner.”
A green peanut is not a special variety, nor does the name refer to the color of its shell. It is a freshly dug peanut that has not been cured or dried.
Green peanuts are harvested while their kernels still contain considerable moisture and are tender enough to slip easily from the shell after boiling. Shelley typically harvests his green peanuts between 95 and 110 days after planting. Peanuts destined for the traditional market remain in the field much longer 145 to 165 days so they can reach full maturity.
Shelley offers customers a simple way to recognize the difference.
“Have you ever eaten a boiled peanut that was hard to get out of the hull?” he asked. “You opened it, and it was two halves in each hull, and you had to dig it out with your teeth. That’s a peanut that was too mature. A green peanut just comes right out of the hull.”
That short harvest window is one reason fresh green peanuts are generally available only from August through November.
Peanut seed needs warm soil to germinate and grow. Most peanuts are planted during the spring and require several months of warm weather before they are ready to dig. Although Shelley planted his first green-peanut crop on April 1 and began harvesting around July 15 in 2026, he said the earliest peanuts were still somewhat immature. For most growers, the season begins later in the summer.
To keep fresh peanuts available, Shelley spaces his plantings approximately 20 days apart. Each planting reaches the proper stage at a different time, allowing him to harvest a little at a time instead of digging the entire crop at once. He hopes to continue harvesting through November, but the final date depends on the weather.
“If the frost doesn’t catch them, I’m hoping to go until November,” he said.
Once freezing temperatures arrive, the growing season is over. Consumers may find frozen peanuts later in the year, but those are different from peanuts dug and sold fresh during harvest season.
Most commercial peanuts are dug and turned upside down in the field, where they cure in windrows before being picked. After harvest, they are placed in peanut wagons and delivered to a buying point. There, the peanuts are dried, graded and prepared for sale to shellers and manufacturers.
Green peanuts require a much faster and gentler process.
Because the freshly dug hulls contain high levels of moisture, they bruise easily. Traditional peanut-picking equipment is designed to handle peanuts that have cured in the field, so Shelley modified a two-row picker to harvest green peanuts without damaging them as severely.
“They’re real delicate,” Shelley said. “Anything they hit or bump is going to bruise the hull. We have to be gentle with them and get the field heat out as soon as possible.”
After the peanuts leave the field, Shelley cleans and washes them as quickly as possible. They are then bagged and moved into a cooler or sold to customers who are ready to boil them.
Instead of harvesting large quantities for delivery to a buying point, Shelley often digs according to the orders he has received. If a customer needs 20 bushels, he works to harvest close to that amount. When he takes orders to Birmingham, he may begin digging at 5 a.m., clean and bag the peanuts before 11 a.m., and then load his truck for the trip.
“I try to make sure I can tell the people buying them that they were in the ground that morning,” Shelley said.
That freshness has helped him build a loyal customer base. Some customers travel two or three hours for a single bushel. One couple drove from Mexico Beach, Florida, with no other plans for the day except to purchase Shelley’s peanuts.
For a small farmer, those relationships are just as important as the crop. Selling directly allows Shelley to capture more value from each acre instead of curing the peanuts and selling them through the traditional market.
“A 200-acre farmer has to do something different to keep farming or quit and get another job,” Shelley said.
The limited availability of green peanuts adds to their appeal. Like the first football game or the changing weather, their arrival marks a particular time of year in the South.
“It’s like a mark in the year when peanut season starts,” Shelley said. “Everybody knows summer is right in the middle and football season is fixing to start.”
Green peanuts are also closely tied to the identity of Alabama’s Wiregrass region. The area’s warm growing season and sandy loam soils provide favorable conditions for peanut production, while generations of farmers, buying points and agricultural businesses have built an industry around the crop.
“It’s a Southern thing,” Shelley said. “It’s part of the Wiregrass area. I don’t think there are many people in the Wiregrass who don’t eat peanuts or boiled peanuts. It’s what the Wiregrass is known for.”
For Shelley, green peanuts offer a way to preserve that tradition while creating a more sustainable future for his farm. They also give him a product he enjoys growing, marketing and sharing with others.
“If you put a memory behind it, you can sell a product more,” he said. “That’s what I shoot for making somebody remember, ‘We got those good peanuts that time.’”
From August through November, those memories begin with peanuts lifted from the Wiregrass soil, cleaned and placed in customers’ hands, sometimes within only a few hours.
Find local green and boiled peanuts in your area visit www.sweetgrownalabama.org/find-sweet-grown