Boil em, Mash em, Stick em in a stew!

Annual January potato planting!

 Winter is usually a slow time for sowing new crops with the exception of potatoes! In Arizona we grow our potatoes in the cool winter months and harvest at the end of May before it gets hot. Because of having to grow them in the cool time of year (when the days are short) the ultimate size doesnt get to grocery store proportions, but they make up for the lack of size with a really unique buttery flavor. 

 Planting involves making a trench and placing the seed potatoes in the trench and burying. Some buy special seed potatoes (small 1" diameter) to use for seed. We just buy grocery store potatoes and cut them up (one eye per cut) and let them heal for a few days before planting. 

The tops usually emerge in the first week of February. They really require no other special care for us before harvesting time. Otherwise January is fruit tree trimming time. We will be very busy trimming and chipping our 250 fruiting trees to prepare them for the 2017 season. 

By the way in case you are wondering about what that contraption that we are using to make the tench to plant in, its a walking tractor! They were very popular in the 30s, 40s, and 50s for small plot farming. Easy to use and very maneuverable, we just use ours to death.

How we spent our Christmas vacation.

You guys are more than farmers?? Oh yes, believe it or not we have lots of interests! There are very few times of the year that are slow for us and make it easy to get away. Summers are super busy with fruit and vegetable season of course now so Christmas is a natural break for us to scoot away for some R&R. This year we escaped to the tropical island of Roatan Honduras.

As you can see the island was rather beautiful! Its 40 miles long and only 5 miles wide at most places. Roatan is famous for its scuba diving of which we enjoyed thoroughly. The coral barrier reef was beautiful!

As you can see it was a pretty stressful trip. ;)

And we made all sorts of new friends. Although this little friend was quite the thief!

 

Ate a few sinful plates of seafood!

Did a little bit of hiking.

But mainly we just enjoyed some quiet time together and recharged our batteries. 

Alas we returned the day before new years and are now full speed into prep for next fruit and vegetable season. It was a nice break while it lasted. And provided a idea for a new baked item that we will be selling in the near future!