We recently got a cactus fruit (tuna) from a Too Good To Go bag. It was really seedy, even more so than I would have thought. The flavor was good though. This is where you would naturally get these fruits. You probably don't want to stick your hand in there to get them though. The pads are thorny but the fruit is also. They have to de-burr them to make them edible. We once wild harvested some of these to make cactus fruit jelly. Probably could have done a preserver or jam but the jelly was what we had in mind and stuck to it. It came out really nice but was a lot of work and I had stickers in my hands for months. If we do that again I will have to figure out how to get them and properly remove all of the bits to make it safe.
At the local Fiesta Mart they process the pads too and make strips out of them to add to dishes or pickle. I imagine that is even harder. We ended up discarding most of the tuna because there were so many seeds. I kept some of course because I grow things. If there's ever been anything more consistent it is that I grow things. It doesn't matter if they are supposed to be grown sometimes. Bamboo in pots though, I'm not trying to ruin the world with the stuff.
We just finished a podcast episode on In this episode talking about how gardening can be stress-reducing, and how it can inspire creativity. My wife doesn't feel quite the same way about gardening since it's hard to see an end. I find the harvest the occasional end to parts of the garden. Some parts may not really have an end but rather a new chapter.
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