Gardening in a Kilt (Buzz Kidder Canvas)

[Bugbear]

*I tried to post this about five-thousand pages back, but it wouldn't let me. I figured out that a spanish character was messing it up, so that has ben replaced, and it is now on the record. I've also put it in the origenal post that I tried to put it in.*

String, Moosedog, here is some more uninteresting information that you might be interested in.

I work with three main prickly pear cacti as food crops. The Indian Fig or Mission Cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica) is my primary prickly pear because it is fairly spineless, and most of the spines can be easily brushed off with a tool. It is also an aggressive grower when watered weekly with gray water from the washer in the warmer months of the year. They love those phosphates in the soapy water. Also, they, like most prickly pear, can be vegetatively propagated, cloned, by rooting pads, or parts of pads. It is very easy to make many more cacti from cuttings than are needed.

The second prickly pear is the Nopal Cardo'n (Opuntia streptacantha), and it is being studied for use in normalizing blood sugar in diabetes. It has to do with the fiber in the pads, but isn't understood very well yet. I was growing them for some people who had diabetic dogs. The pads are heavily spined and have a second type of spine that almost look like a white curly fur, hints the scientific name (Opuntia streptacantha). Though it is heavily spined, the spines don't come off of the cacti as easily as with most prickly pears.

The third and worst prickly pear I work with is Engelmann's Prickly pear or Calico Cactus (Opuntia engelmanni), and the spines come out of this monster very easily. At this point I only have one because it is so horrible to work with and it grows so quickly that I can't deal with a yard full of them. It would make a nice fence hedge, though... I saved the original plant that I started with because it was so ugly that it almost had bonsai-like qualities, it had developed a trunk like shape, so now it is in a pot by one of my front gates. It isn't as horrible as, for example, the Teddy Bear Cholla (Cylindropuntia bigelovii), which is one of the famed jumping Chollas, but it is bad. It also has a Mickey Mouse ears appearance as one pad sprouts two new pads at the top.

A couple of other desert crops I am looking into and growing are the Road Kill Cactus (Consolea rubescens), and the Banana Yucca or Datil Yucca (Yucca baccata). I'm still exploring these plants, but the yucca roots of a young plant can be used as a shampoo, String. Also, a bug, or cochineal insect (Dactylopius coccus), that can tend to grow on the pads of the prickly pear, can be used as a pretty purple to red dye if they are squished...

Finally, to make this slightly relevant, often when walking past some of the prickly pears, spines end up in my pant legs. This is very bad. The spines seem to be broken up and freed from the cloth when washed, but getting the pants off when they are full of spines is challenging. I don't wear gloves when working with prickly pears for this same reason. It has not happened yet, but I think the kilt will not cause the same problems if it gets cactus spines in it because it is much looser fitting, has more layers of cloth and several other boring reasons. And yes, I do handle cacti barehanded all the time..., then spend hours removing the spines from my hands. It's fun!


* It is good to finally get that thorn out of my paw.