Making Prickly Pear Nectar

I bought a new book at the Farmer's Market.  The Prickly Pear Cookbook by Carol Niethammer.  I absolutely love this book.  It describes in depth the nutritional traits of the cactus, how to harvest and process the cactus.  This book also contains a variety of recipes using the cactus in beverages, main dishes, dessert, and everything in between. I don't want to break copyright law or anything so I'm going to tell you what I did to 200 prickly pear that I picked.

How I Harvest Prickly Pear
I keep tongs and plastic bags in my car.  When my kids nap or when I come across a really good cactus while driving around town, I stop and pick the tunas (fruit) off with my tongs.  Each tuna has long sharp thorns and glochids, small patch of fuzzy thorns that was so small you can barely see them.  But you can definitely feel them.  Always having tweezers available is a must.

Upon arriving home, I either freeze the tunas in a 2 gallon zip loc bag or I begin to process them.

How I Process Prickly Pear
I put 30 tunas in a strainer and run water over them turning them with my tongs.  I then put them in boiling water for a few minutes.  Take them out of the boiling water with tongs and put them in my Vitamix.  Blend on high for 30 seconds or so.  Pour into strainer with a cheese cloth.  Mix the juice substance to help the juice flow through the colander.  I put the seeds and pulp in the compost or outside so the birds can enjoy it.  Put the juice in large mason jars and store in refrigerator or freezer depending on how quickly you will use it.

Now the juice/nectar is ready to make lemonade, jelly or syrup.
The sky is the limit with what you can do with the juice.  I'll let you know when I decide what to do with it.  For me, 200 prickly pear fruit made 5 quarts of juice.

Update on What I've Been Doing

Here is what I've been up to:
(1) A few weeks back I filled the 6 garden beds in my front yard with compost.  I planted the seeds, the monsoons came to water them, and seedlings sprouted.  Oh it was so exciting until all the seedlings turned yellow.  Why?  I accidentally bought mulch not compost.  Nothing will grow in mulch.  Mulch is to keep the moisture in and should be applied on top of compost.  So I now have the big job of fixing my problem.  This will involve sifting out the wood chips in the mulch, sifting AZ dirt and adding it to the sifted mulch.  Adding manure and compost to that and mixing it all up.  Then I will be ready to plant again.  UGH.  Sometimes I learn the hard way.

(2) My washing machine has been converted to a grey water system.  The holes are dug for the lemon tree and grape vines.  I've been monitoring how the holes fill with water when we do laundry.  Seems like we still have too much grey water which means I will dig another trench and add a fig tree also.  I am shopping around for the grape vines, lemon tree, and fig tree so I buy the best variety for this climate.

(3)  I have picked (I'm guessing) close to 1000 prickly pear fruit (tunas).  I am making juice from all of them to freeze.  In the future I will make jam, syrup, etc. from the juice.  I also picked prickly pear pads (nopales) to sell at the Farmer's Market.  They usually sell very well.  I don't understand why because anyone can go in their yard and pick them for free. I've been harvesting them from friends' yards or the alleys.  I also have 2 bags of mesquite pods.  I hope to gather many more before milling season begins.  Since I am focusing on gathering wild mesquite and prickly pear this year, I think I will add one more wild food each year to my list of what I gather.

I bought a book at the Santa Cruz River Market called The Prickly Pear Cookbook by a local author.  There are 40 some recipes from drinks to main dishes to desserts with using the cactus.  I had no idea is was so nutritional and mostly full of water.  Such a treasure to find.  The nopales are used to manage blood sugar issues such as diabetes.  The juice of the tunas can be used as dyes in clothing.  Anyways, I'm fascinated by nature.

I'd love to hear from you about what gardening related activities you have been up to lately.

Marana Heritage Farm

Today was the last of 3 Saturdays that I have spent at the Marana Heritage Farm.  I have completed the necessary workshops to apply for the Community Cultivators Program at the Marana Farm.  This program is an 18 month program where participants are given a quarter of an acre to farm and sell the veggies at the Farmer's Market.  Due to time restraints and distance of travel, I will not be involved in this program at this time.

The Marana Farm has full time staff involved in composting, vermiculture (worm composting), teen farming program, volunteer coordinator, and Monday Evening Farmer's Market.  It is a very active place.  I learned more than I expected.  Here is what I remember off the top of my head:
(1) G&M have good gardening supplies
(2)ARBICO has excellent organic products to improve your soil and deter pests
(3) Fish emulsion is good for soil and nitrogen levels
(4)D.E. is good to put on plants to hurt bad bugs by cutting their bodies with the little shards of rock.
(4) The sea shell type things I find in my soil is actually larvae to the tomato horn worm.  I HATE that caterpillar.  Destroys my tomatoes every year.  But not anymore now that I know what it is.
(5) Some purslane is better to eat than others but I can't tell the difference at this point.  All tastes good to me.
(6)Burmuda grass is evil unless you want to feed it to livestock, then it is a cheap source of food.
(7) You can eat most weeds.  Purslane, prickly pear, amaranth, mustard weed.  I didn't think prickly pears were a weed either, but they are according to the book Weeds of the West.  Awesome book, btw.
(8) Vermiculture (worm composting) is the way to go when gardening on a small scale.  Keep moist or they die.
(9) Making your soil is the most important thing when growing food.  The better your soil is, the better your veggies will be.
(10) EM from ARBICO is lots of good bacteria that eat the bad stuff.  Put this in your soil for best results.

I'm exhausted from being in the sun today.   My thoughts are random but at least I got it on paper for now.  And sadly, no pictures.  Perhaps some day I will be a better blogger but for now, this will do.

In the Middle of Prickly Pear and Mesquite Season

This past week I've had fun driving around my neighborhood while my kids nap in the car and finding mesquite trees and prickly pear cactus growing in parks and alleys to pick from.  I have a grocery bag of mesquite pods and picked 290 prickly pear fruits.  And I'm only getting started.

The largest patch of prickly pears is at my friend's house and behind a donut shop in the neighborhood.  They are deep purple and when you pull the fruit off the plant, it bleeds deep red. If it is still green at the bottom they are not quite ready to pick.  I just put the prickly pear fruit (tunas) in my freezer in 2 gallon zip locks.  80 tunas to a zip lock.  I've heard it is easier to get the "pokey things" (phrase from my 3 year old) off when they are frozen.  I plan on rolling the fruit on screen to take the spines off, washing them, boiling them, blending them in my Vitamix, draining the juice using a strainer and cheese cloth, and finally freezing the juice in ice cube trays.  I plan on taking the pulp back to the cactus to allow birds and other critters to eat it and complete the cycle.  I also won't pick all the fruit from the cactus because I want to leave some for the wild animals that rely on it to survive, mostly birds.  I'll write a post as to what happens once I try this.  Anyone know great tasting recipes using prickly pear fruit juice?

I have now located a good number of mesquite trees growing in the alleys near my house.  There are also many in a park near my place.  I totally hit the jackpot with finding lots of trees in one place.I have picked enough to fill a grocery bag.  My plan is to pick 5 buckets full (5 gallons) so once milled, will equal 1 gallon of flour.  The millings begin at various places around town come September.  I ground 1 1/2 cups already in my Vitamix and made pancakes.  The whole family loved them.    So far, most mesquite pods are still green which means they aren't quite ready to pick.  Once they are completely brown and fall into your hand when you touch them, they are ready to pick.  You should be able to break them in half easily.  I've heard they can be washed in water, dried on trays outside or in a dehydrator/solar oven, and then put in a sealed container until milling into flour.  Tiny bugs lay eggs in the pods when they are green.  Once the bugs hatch they make little holes in the pods to escape.  Make sure you leave your harvested pods outside so that the bugs can hatch and escape unless you like bugs inside.  If you don't like the idea of bugs coming out of your pods, you can bake the pods, causing the bugs to die inside the pods.  I view the little bugs as extra protein.

If you buy unbleached wheat flour from the store, there are little bugs in that too, all ground up.  Thanks to Amy from Desert Harvesters for teaching me all this great information.

http://www.desertharvesters.org/

Stay tuned....