Jeff and I went to a plant nursery a few days ago because we are trying to decide what type of plants we should have in our back yard.

There are so many trees to choose from. We could have:

Pomegranate- I’m still upset about an argument I had with my English teacher about the hidden significance of this particular fruit. For those of you who did not know this- anytime you read about a pomegranate- it means sex/girl parts. Yeah- I don’t get it either. Anyway, the guy showed us the tree and pulled the fruit off, cracked it in half and implored us to try it. There are these little seed things on the inside that are surrounded by a white membrane (like the stuff between orange peel and the orange). They are usually sweet if the fruit is ripe, more bitter if it isn’t quite ready yet.
Lime- Key Limes or also known as Mexican Limes. Corona sized I’m told, but not usually the type you get in the grocery store. Mexican limes are round, not oval. If you let them ripen on the tree long enough, they become really sweet so you can just eat them like an orange. This tree is most promising, especially after last week’s successful foray into cilantro-lime rice.
Palm Trees- oh sooo many varieties. It turns out that palm trees are heavily manicured and they actually produce fruit. They cut the fruit and the old fronds off during the manicure. The guy said that the fruit isn’t poisonous, but it probably wouldn’t taste very good. The fruit looks like little grapes.
Orange- We just planted an orange tree- but we learned so much more about them. Orange trees are actually just cut off branches from bigger orange trees, not grown from seeds. I thought this was crazy! And, aside from the chilly MN climate it explains why my planted orange seeds never turned into anything.
Apple- For most apple trees, you have to have a male and a female tree, otherwise you won’t get any apples. If I was going to plant an apple tree, it would be a Honeycrisp and the climate in AZ just isn’t suited for it. Boo.
Almonds and Pecans- turns out that they grow from trees. I never gave it much thought, but if asked on ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire’ my final answer for ‘Where do Almonds and Pecans came from?’ would have been “The ground- like peanuts.”
Fig- I saw the jungle Planet Earth where the whole jungle fights over fig trees, but this is a different variety. This tree has really cool looking leaves, but the fruit left me undecided. I had never tasted a fig aside from the Newton variety, so for those of you like me who have never tried a fig- it tasted kind of like a plum and a peach mixture, looks a little freaky on the insides.