Insight Out

[robby]

I haven't been to the grocery store recently, I'm down to just staples, and what I pick from the garden. It was nice to have some cactus fruit ripen, they taste something like strawberries. Eating like this, gives an appreciation for what life must have been like in simple times.

Comments

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Cacti have *fruit*?! Well I suppose they'd have to make seeds in order to reproduce and perhaps, like other plant phyla, they evolved fruit to get herbivores to disperse the seeds. Is this a wild-type cactus that you grow or a domesticated variety?

[robby.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if it's considered domesticated, but it's widely grown and prized by the Mexicans. They call the fruit "tunas" and we call it "prickly pear". This is the plant that took in too much water, split and collasped on me a few months ago.
Here is a link with some pictures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opuntia