Barrel cactus is a plant that is easy to grow and take care of, and offers a rich edible fruit with no prickers or spines on the fruit. Yes prickly pear is sweet and tasty, but lets look at a plant never needs pruning, and a plant that you can easily harvest from.

Cover image above: Barrel cactus fruit image courtesy Rillito Nursery, Tucson Arizona.

The Computer Ate my Edible Weeds Article

Seriously, I had a lovely, well researched article about a wonder summer edible “weed” called purslane or verdolagas.  1500 words.  Lot’s of pictures.  I get a “General Error” when I try to access the file to post it. I shall recreate it and post it later, meanwhile here is something for today. 

So as to NOT break the posting once a week for the past 200+ weeks, I am sharing an article I originally wrote for a now defunct website called “Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens.” This article originally appeared in November 2014. I have updated it, but so the interweb plagiarism bots don’t get grumpy, I have put my original words within quote marks.

The Curse of the HOA

“Here in the Southwest, there are more than enough native plants to grow and that will provide food for the table – at least partially. Another thing we have more than enough of here are neighborhoods with Home Owner Associations (HOA’s). You might think an HOA good, in that it helps maintain the value of your home, but when the “Plant Nazi’ of the HOA appears and fines you for growing certain plants in your very own landscape, a HOA is suddenly less charming.

Outsmart the HOA

The secret to outsmarting the HOA is to grow native plants that the HOA can’t possibly object to – and our native barrel cactus is one ideal plant for that!

Barrel cactus is the generic term for a number of species of large barrel-shaped cacti. The one with the most edible of fruit is the fish hook or compass barrel (Ferocactus wislizeni).

One look at the spines, and yes they are fish hook shaped. It is also called a compass barrel because it leans slightly towards the south as it ages. Note that this species is like many desert plants, and is very temperamental about being transplanted with the same side facing south! Most reputable nurseries mark the pots with a spot of paint on the south side.

Beautiful Cactus Flowers

The barrel cactus is unlike many other species of cacti in that it often blooms two or even three times per year, thus providing you, the harvester, with ample fruits. It also provides native pollinators with food when often nothing else is in bloom. Flower color varies in the red to orange to golden-yellow range. No way to tell what color it will be until it blooms.”

Cactus flowers are so very beautiful.  They come in large and small and have some unique pollinators. 

Bright Cactus Fruits

“After the blooms, the fruit slowly develops, turning from green to yellow when ripe. They are easy for humans to harvest, you simply grasp the stiff spent flower that remains on the fruit and pull. The fruit comes right off when ripe.” Here’s my YouTube video on Harvesting Barrel Fruit.  It is first in a series about harvesting and processing the fruits.  For actual recipes, those are on Savor the Southwest.

“Native rodents have to climb the spiny plant and gnaw the fruit open, and they do. Birds carefully land and peck the fruit open to get at the seeds. Deer will carefully lip the fruits out of their spiny nest.

Harvest for the Seeds

Do not consume too much of the lemony flavored fruit, because it is high in oxalic acid, which can be hard on human systems. Safe to consume en mass however are the seeds, which taste just like poppy seeds and can be used anywhere you use poppy seeds.

I prefer to toast the seeds for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. This makes them a little easier to eat.” Lemon Barrel Seed Cake is on my sister site Savor the Southwest.

“With one to several bloom cycles per year, a number of barrel cactus have fruit ripening now. This is nice because prickly pear fruit, cholla buds, and saguaro fruit are all harvested in spring or summer. Seems like there is never not a season to enjoy our native plants!”

Good Luck! and you can watch this website for more information on individual native crops, or sign up for my free Substack newsletter.

Thanks for reading – Jacqueline

More Native Fruits to Grow –

May I recommend my book?  The Southwest Fruit & Vegetable Guide offers not just growing guides but some of the latest varieties – including ones specifically for raised bed and container growing. Price is what you would pay on Amazon – only when you buy from me you get a signed copy!

From the review:

“In this updated 2nd edition of Southwest Fruit & Vegetable Gardening, you’ll find much-needed advice and practical tips on growing an edible garden, no matter which part of the southwestern US you call home.

Profits from the sale of this book go to the Arizona-based Horticulture Therapy non-profit Tierra del Sol Institute.

My Promise: 100 Percent Organic Content

You will NEVER get AI generated anything from me. Not even story ideas. All ideas and all words are from my own brain and my own fingers. I DO fact check. In fact, I now fact check at least three times – because “truth is the intersection of three lies.” I have found profound inaccuracies in AI. And since I block AI from reading my pages, they are not learning from my writing.

100 percent organic content in my social media as well. My Tiktok and YouTube videos are entirely generated by me. On the static media (Facebook) I may occasionally have slip up and have an AI image – but never on purpose.

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