Cactus is practice

I’m growing a cactus, though I thought I never would. They’ve always struck me as useless, especially for the southern gardener tuned to a climate that’s as un-desert-like as can be.


They don’t offer much either for someone who likes to grow for the larder. Cactus preserves don’t feature in many recipe books, nor does cacti jam or chutney.

That aside, I got one and it’s doing very well.

It began as a disembodied ‘ear’, given to me during a garden tour of Nightcaps, where surprisingly, cacti flourish. The mother plant was a confident looking thing, claiming a sunny North-facing wall and defending it with honey-coloured spines and looking not to be messed with. The garden owner busted a lobe off one zigzaggy arm with a pair of loppers and dropped it into a paper sack for me. When I got it home I tipped it out under the bench on the veranda and forgot about it for a few weeks. Eventually, I remembered the spiny thing and poked it into the ground, giving it the sunniest spot I could find alongside of the climbing beans. Now, it’s looking very well, plump and simple, like some goofy character with big ears and it’s growing fast. If it maintains the pace it’s set so far I’ll need to be wearing chaps when I walk past it!