It's October, and that means The Peanut Patch is open! Donna George of The Peanut Patch in Yuma, Arizona joins producer Lisa D. Smith to celebrate the start of the season, with fresh peanut brittle and fudge back on the counter for Yuma locals, winter visitors, and road trippers passing through. Can't make it to Arizona? You can shop online year-round at ThePeanutPatch.com.

Listen to the Big Blend Raido “The Peanut Patch” Podcast Episode with Donna:

Getting the store ready takes work. Donna says it takes about a week and a half to get the first run of product down and out on the floor, and from there it's about staying caught up. Peanut brittle is made fresh every day, and the fudge is made right in the store.

The fudge table is a highlight: caramel, vanilla, milk chocolate, regular chocolate, coconut, different nuts and flavorings, and Donna expects about forty-five flavors out by the time you visit. Over the course of a season, the count has been just under two hundred. Creamsicle fudge is popular right now, and pumpkin fudge made with real pumpkin arrives late in the month before becoming the flavor of the month for November.

Donna and Lisa talk pumpkin seeds, from white pumpkin seeds you crack open to pepitas, which are great in granola and trail mix. There are about twenty Peanut Patch salsas made especially for the store, from mild to extremely hot, plus dried apples, apple rings, apple butter, and apple preserves for the apple season. Sugar-free candy is getting harder to find, but Donna expects to have sugar-free taffy, chocolate raisins, and a few clusters out starting around the second week.

Donna gives an inside look at what's happening behind the storefront. Peanuts are roasted on site and ground into fresh peanut butter. The kitchen makes peanut brittle, sesame brittle, and jalapeño peanut brittle, plus chocolate clusters with almonds, cashews, walnuts, and pecans. The store also carries Medjool dates grown and processed right in Yuma, along with products from local vendors including hot jellies, tomato-less salsa, locally roasted coffee, soaps and lotions, and pickled green beans, asparagus, beets, okra, carrots, and garlic. Donna's grandson Matthew is also busy freeze drying, with a liver experiment underway for a customer, and Lisa has a pizza suggestion.

Donna and Lisa trade ideas for the season: decorating a Halloween cake or gingerbread house with candy, and mixing candy corn with salty peanuts for a snack that tastes like a Payday bar. Lisa makes her case for serving good candy at gatherings instead of cheap bags from the big box store.

Donna shares her appreciation for Yuma's farming community and agriculture, and her story of a customer who remembered coming on a tour as a child. She has owned The Peanut Patch for twenty-nine years, this is the store's forty-ninth season, and next November will be its fiftieth. The anniversary celebration is Saturday, November 21, with local vendors, a local radio station, and plenty of samples. Medjool date shakes will likely start that day. Along the way, they discuss Jelly Belly's changes and Donna's plan to carry popular flavors in bags, gift boxes laden with peanut brittle, butter toffee peanuts, chili peanuts, roasted peanuts, and fresh ground peanut butter, and whether you grew up putting peanuts in your Coca-Cola.

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