I’ve never thought of cactus as being pretty til we moved here but there are some really pretty ones. I suppose when there’s a drought and hardly anything will grow, it’s easy to find beauty in a cactus blossom. From the looks of all the blossoms in the yard and in the woods around the house, we should have lots of prickly pears this year.
Cactus
It was nice to see the bees taking care of business!
Bee in the Blossom
Speaking of food from the yard, the agarita is so full of berries. We may try to pick some this weekend. This one is just beyond the fence.
Agarita
This one is just at the edge of the house.
Agarita
I’ve kinda halfway been giving it a drink of water every now and then . . and I may have even sprinkled some fertilizer around it. 🙂
Susan says
I guess we didn’t have agarita in Arizona because I don’t recall ever seeing anything like that. How wonderful to get the berries. Will they be jam or will you just can them as fruit?
Terri says
I save the found water that I run before using the dishwasher… also the water before you shower goes to watering plants. We have to squeeze any drop we can get.
Hugs
Sherrill says
What’s an agarita and what do you do with the berries? Eat them raw or make them into something? I’ve never heard of it..will hafta google!
Bobbie Bentneedle says
Judy, I used to have a hard-headed German father-in-law, born in the Hill Country,who swore the best way to harvest agarita berries was to spread sheets on the ground underneath/around the plant, and “whoop it with a broom handle”…. I never tried it personally, but have had some tasty agarita jelly.
Claudia D says
My mom grew up out in west Texas and says this is how she and her brother would gather them, then my Grandma would make jelly.
Cookie E. says
Loved seeing your beautiful cactus blossoms. Ours won’t bloom until late June. Someone gifted me with a plant years ago and now I have a garden full of them. They seem to be so hardy that they will even grow and bloom here in Pennsylvania. It’s amazing how here they shrivel up in the winter, but don’t die, and then in the spring and summer they come to life again and produce such beautiful blossoms. Will you do anything with the fruit they produce?
JudyL says
Really? I would never have guessed they would survive in PA. Ours don’t shrivel up in the winter but they don’t grow larger during the winter. Last year, I juiced the fruit and made quite a bit of jelly and syrup (great in margaritas) and still have 8 or 10 quarts of juice in the freezer.
liz says
I had to google the plant since it’s not here in OK. I found a jelly recipe on a blog and the person also described the tarp & bush whacking as the best way to get the berries. At least the deer don’t like them!
Daryl says
Judy the prickly pears are in bloom here in New Mexico right now and the cholla will be blooming after the prickly pears. I dyed some yarn a few years ago using prickly pear cactus juice. You just have to be careful of those nasty thorns, ouch!!!! But depending on how long you leave the yarn fermenting it will be anywhere from a soft pink to a dark mauve. color. Just don’t heat the juice or you get brown.
JudyL says
That sounds interesting. We made lots of prickly pear jelly and syrup last year and still have juice in the freezer. I will make more jelly this year if we have a lot of fruit.
danielle says
Yum yum yum…..prickly pear fruit! Prickly pear jelly! But have to admit I appreciate both much more when someone has already done all the work with them!!!
JudyL says
I use the steam juicer so I throw the fruit into the pot . . needles and all! Way less work that way.
Diana in RR, TX says
That’s the yellow rose of Texas!
barbara says
yes, here in new jersey we also get the cactus to flower. they also shrivel up during the winter and come back in the summer, full of buds. they’re especially plentiful growing wild along the seashore at sandy point. we only get yellow. are there any other colors?
barbara says
correction: sandy hook. my kids called it sandy’s point when they were little – now it’s a name we jokingly use. sorry.
JudyL says
This particular variety has some that are almost orange . . kind of everything in between yellow and orange. There are other cactus that bloom different colors though.