Jan–MarApr–JunJul–SepOct–Dec
Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-324
Cactus Pad
Opuntia ficus-indica
Cactus pad, or nopal, is a paddle cactus grown for two crops off one plant: pads sliced and cooked like green beans, and a sweet, gelatinous fruit that gets rolled in sand first to strip off its nearly invisible barbed hairs before anyone handles it bare-skinned. It also works as drought-season insurance for livestock - the pads run 85-95 percent water, so a stand of it is stored feed and stored water on the same ground, though the spines have to be burned or cut off before animals can eat it safely. It wants sharp drainage above almost everything else; planted straight into heavy clay, it rots from wet feet faster than any winter cold would kill it.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 8–11
- Soil
- Sand · Loam
- Moisture
- Dry
Vertical layer
Shrub- Soil pH
- 6–7.5
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 10–15 ft
- Mature spread
- 10–15 ft
- Plant spacing
- 4.9–13.1 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- Both
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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