Prickley Pear (Opuntia) Fruit Beginning to Ripen in the Garden This Week

As summer winds down, the prickly pear cactus (Opuntia) is starting to ripen its fruit. I have 5 large cacti in the front and back garden and they have reached maturity, so our harvest of fruit has been growing each year. Today, I spotted over 40 fruits at various stages of ripening. I am guessing they will all be ready for harvest once I return from a 2 week trip to Australia in September. 

Prickly pear fruit currently ripening

Last year, I turned the fruit into prickly pear syrup for my pancakes and more. This year, with a larger harvest, I am thinking of making freezer jam. I really don’t have the wherewithal to go the full route of canning the jam, but figured this might be a good option to preserve the fruit and provide us a tasty treat for the next year.

Preparing the fruit looks like it might be fraught with many cactus spines and such, but I found my leather gardening gloves provided enough protection as I skinned each fruit. Once skinned, I processed them through a makeshift food mill (i.e., a sieve) and captured the results. This was fairly slow and a lot of work, so I think I am going to borrow a friend’s food mill this year to make it go faster. The large seeds in the fruit make it necessary to process them into something more palatable. Once that is done, it is a small bit of cooking on the stove to thicken the resulting fruit into jam.

Prepping last year’s fruit

Last year’s harvest

I had never thought about eating prickly pear, even though I saw a lot of it here in the San Fernando Valley. Then, on a summer visit to family in Sicily, I attended a conference on cherries and prickly pear (figo d’India, in Italian), two major agricultural products of the island.  There I tasted the fruit, including the seeds, juice, and even a prickly pear granita. That immediately made me think about harvesting my own fruit. 

I had originally planted the cactus, started from a few harvested paddles from a neighbor, to add some vertical elements ot the garden, so the fruit is just an added benefit.

Transplanted prickly pear after I rooted it in a pot for about a year.

The same plant today (and this had been pruned at least once)