divas & adorable carrots

Diva.

Guess who else fancies herself a princess?  And it's not Lila this time. Well...yes, it's Lila.  It's always Lila. But also it's this little cherry tomato plant.

I probably talk to my plants too much.

"You can grow up to be anything you want" (I say to my plants.) "Within certain parameters, of course."

I made the mistake of saying this to Raphael once and now look where we are. He took my affirmation of his potential a little too seriously, and did the whole vampire architecture student thing, and now he's all: "I build models until four in the morning. I live on coffee and pho soup. I have a drawing board set up in the Arizona room that I don't ever use because I'm always at the university building models and drinking coffee and slurping up pho soup."

The good news is that, even if my baby tomatoes grow up and decide to become architects, their practices will be confined to the garden boxes. I'll still have someone around to talk to.

Here's a picture of some carrots.

Carrots. My neighbor Kim made these sweet little carrots and, in the great tradition of people leaving sinister food items on our front porch, she came by last weekend bearing an armful of them and dropped them off with us, thereby inspiring me to go see if my own might be ready for plucking.

Here's a picture of the carrots I 

subsequently plucked from my own garden. 

Delicious grilled homemade carrots and tofu.

I decided to try grilling them. I soaked the green parts for awhile in water and used this recipe from The Vegetarian Grill by Andrea Chesney:

Honey-Ginger Glazed Carrots

1 lb. carrots
1 T. toasted sesame oil
1 T. honey
1 T. finely minced ginger
2 minced garlic cloves
1 tspn. soy sauce

Stick them on a lightly oiled grill rack (with the green parts away from the heat if possible) and grill over medium heat, turning frequently, until tender and grill-marked. Pour remaining glaze over carrots to serve.

The orange tree through the kitchen window.

The orange tree in bloom.

Other Plant News. The yard is in full bloom now. Besides carrots and diva tomato plants, the prickly pears and hedgehogs are all fluffed up with flowers and bees. The penstemons are almost taller than I am, and the palo verde is exploding in slow motion with its gorgeous yellow flowers. Until a few days ago, the orange tree looked like a wedding and smelled like...an orange tree in full bloom.

I love spring in the desert.

Penstemons, agave, desert bluebells, dogweed,
and miscellaneous purple flowers.