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.