How To Remove Thorns From Prickly Pear Cactus

Dechorning a Prickly Pear

To protect oneself from being pricked by the thorns, put on rubber gloves.
To remove the fruit’s outer layer of skin, use a paring knife or vegetable peeler.
To get rid of any leftover thorns, rinse the prickly pear in cold water.
The prickly pear’s ends should be severed and thrown away.

How are the spines on prickly pear pads removed?

Although using a knife to cut the spines off the cactus pads does the trick, burning them off is more reliable.

Allen the Beekeeper was lighting the grill a few nights ago, so I thought it would be a nice opportunity to give him a taste of the nopale cactus I’ve been raising.

Here is the video proof:

All types of pad cactus (Opuntia spp.) are edible, as I mention in the video. Many of them are also rather simple to grow in Florida. Once you get rid of the countless tiny spines that will ruin your life if you brush across the plant, the kind you see in the video is simple to process because it doesn’t have any enormous spikes. This kind differs from the common prickly pear cactus, which produces a sizable edible fruit. Instead, it usually blooms and leaves little in its wake.

The fruit and pads of these prickly pears are edible:

The pads must be taken while very young since they are much tougher than the variety we cooked.

On the grill, it is actually simple to remove the spines from cactus pads. Even turning them around over a flame is not necessary, as Allen demonstrates in the video. To remove the tiny spines, simply place them directly on the grill.

You might also need to clip the spines out of the larger cactus pads that are occasionally sold in the grocery store.

The spines from the cactus pads cannot be removed by watering the plant. Make no effort.

Nopale cactus has a flavor that is slightly sour and somewhat reminiscent of both green bell peppers and green beans. It’s fairly good, but my wife finds the texture to be too mucilaginous. However, she enjoys it in cactus chili because the acidity of the tomato juice eliminates the sliminess of the nopal. You’ll mistake the chopped chunks of some cactus chili for green peppers if you eat it.

Last but not least, yesterday it occurred to me that nopale cactus ought to have been listed as a crop in my book Totally Crazy Easy Florida Gardening. Oh well, perhaps it will appear in the “updated and extended edition” I’m certain to write in a few years.

How are glochids removed from prickly pear fruit?

I know this is probably an extremely stupid question, but I was wondering the best way to remove all of the little stickers from the prickly pear in order to pick it when it is in season next year. What is the ideal technique to use them medicinally is another question.

ANSWER:

Burning them off is the simplest approach to get rid of the tiny, fine stickers, also known as glochids. Our journal, Native Plants, published a “How to” article on the procedure in its Spring 2005 issue. For the glochids, we advise using a kitchen propane flame similar to the one used to make crème brulee, and a paring knife for the larger thorns. The flame on your gas cooktop could potentially be used to eradicate the glochids. On a grill fork, spear the tuna-shaped prickly pear fruit and turn it over the flame until the glochids are burned off. (I can tell you from terrible personal experience that this won’t work over a candle. Not all of the glochids can be properly burned off by the flame’s heat.)

A method for de-spineing tuna and nopalitos (the cactus pads) without using flames is described in an article from Gourmet Sleuth. Naturally, they peel them extremely meticulously. This page also discusses the medical benefits of decreasing LDL cholesterol. You can use “Opuntia” as a search keyword on the University of Michigan’s Native American Ethnobotany website to find references to additional medicinal and culinary uses for the various parts of the prickly pear cactus.

How can a prickly pear be peeled without getting pricked?

The prickly pear cactus, Opuntia, was first found in South America before making its way north into Mexico and North America. Opuntia flourishes in Southern California’s coastal brush, front and back yards, and community gardens, especially where there is a sizable Latino population.

The founder of the garden, Juan Gamboa, responded when asked about the massive stands of prickly pear cactus at the Stanford-Avalon Community Garden in Los Angeles by saying that the majority of the gardeners are from Mexico, where it is an unofficial national vegetable. even appears on the flag.

The most prevalent kind of Opuntia ficus-indica in gardens can be identified by its big, flat, practically spineless paddles and its red, white, or yellow tunas, which are frequently referred to as pears (but actually an over-sized berry). Because of widespread hybridization, there are dozens of additional opuntia.

Paddles can be used raw in salads after being peeled to get rid of any spines. They can be used as a side dish or for tacos. They can be boiled to remove the slime from the raw flesh or steamed, grilled, sautéed, French-fried, or sautéed. (By the way, you can use that slime as shampoo.) They taste and feel similar to green beans.

Cut or twist off smaller, hand-sized, half-inch-thick pads, leaving an inch behind for regrowth, to harvest for food.

The seeds on the oval tunas are more crunchy than those on kiwi fruit. The simplest way to seed them for juice is with a manual food mill, but be careful of the almost imperceptible hair-like prickles. First, singe the pear over a flame. The Pasadena nursery California Cactus Center’s landscape designer Jeff Dezell has a tip for getting rid of prickles that penetrate the skin: Elmer’s glue should be applied, let to dry, and then peeled off.

If at all possible, handle the prickly pear cactus from the root ball and wrap the main stem and paddles in paper before transplanting. Utilize disposable gloves.

This plant spreads quickly on its own, creating fences where they are required and occasionally growing up to 20 feet tall. It is simple to spread. A callus will develop over the paddle that was severed by being snipped off close to the main trunk and left exposed to the elements for a few weeks. Place it in sandy, well-drained soil after that. Give it plenty of water, then wait until the earth is almost dry. The result of overwatering is decay. The plant is overly dry, as indicated by wrinkled paddles. For cactus plants to grow more quickly, fertilize once a month.

Will cactus needles naturally fall out?

“Dieter claims that it is a natural response. However, if at all possible, “you’re better off not using your fingers.

It’s all too simple to make things worse, especially if you attempt to remove cholla bits with your own hands. Nobel once seen the results of this choice in a couple who had been harmed by the infamous teddy bear cholla in the Saguaro National Forest. As one of the couple initially got trapped on a piece of stem, his wife became caught when she attempted to remove him.

According to Nobel, the more they fought, the deeper their spines went.

They were holding hands with the torturous joint while yelling for aid as they walked along the road in an uncomfortable embrace. By removing the spines with a pair of wire cutters, Nobel was able to liberate the pair.

Before dealing with the individual prickers, Puente-Martinez also suggests cutting the section of stem to which the spines are attached, like he did in Mexico when his friend’s lip turned into a pincushion. He suggests using a pair of scissors or pliers to cut the stem-attached spines, leaving about a half-inch piece of spine still embedded in your flesh. The stem and some of the spines can also be worked free using the teeth of a comb. If you don’t have any tools on hand and the spines are stuck in your hand, another option is to lean over, step on the stem joint, and pull your hand free. However, this will probably result in a little more blood as the spines are drawn out.

Depending on the kind of spine you have, there are different things you should do next. You can try using a pair of tweezers to remove larger, needle-like spines. The straight spines on saguaro cacti are the easiest to remove, however barbed cholla spears or hooked spines like those on barrel cacti require a little more effort to remove.

When you try to remove cactus spines, they frequently break, leaving bits under your skin. According to Trager, “[the area] will stay sensitive to the touch, so you’ll know if you haven’t gotten it all.

To find the spine fragment, you can try using tweezers or a needle, however they may be transparent and difficult to find.

According to Trager, trying to manipulate the spine with a needle frequently results in more harm than the spine itself did. “It might not be worth performing unless you can truly see the broken base of the spine just under the skin or something. According to him, some of the discomfort from implanted spines can be relieved by soaking in a warm Epsom salt bath.

Can glochids be removed from cacti?

Maybe you’re hiking through a small desert canyon twenty miles off the beaten path. Or perhaps you take a wrong turn through your aunt’s succulent garden after two martinis at her cocktail party. Cactus spines can hurt, whether you encounter them in the wild or in a botanical garden, and if you’re not careful, the tiny, hairy ones known as glochids may even endanger your health. The best course of action is to avoid getting into contact with cactus spines, but if that is not possible, here is how to fix the problem.

Cactus spines can be divided into two categories. The majority of cacti have the thick kind, which is easiest treated like a splinter, and the glochids mentioned before, which need to be extracted using a whole other technique.

First, let’s talk about the common spines. Unless you really wail on the plant, as I did here with my bare foot, most cacti’s spines won’t come away from the plant when you brush up against them. The best approach to treat a cactus spine puncture wound that then has the decency to remain attached to its parent plant is to treat it just like you would any other scratch or puncture wound, despite how terrible it is. Ensure the cleanliness of your new piercing. In the wilderness, this might call for moist towels and a product resembling hand sanitizer. If you’re close to a plumbing system, soap and water will do the trick. After that, simply monitor the wound as it recovers to prevent infection.

It’s considerably more likely for thin-spined cacti to break off and stab your skin. Most of the time, you ought to be able to remove these by treating them like a small splinter. If you don’t have tweezers, you should use the blade of a pocketknife to scrape the spines loose. It should go without saying that you should use extreme caution when doing this.

It will be much harder to remove the spines if none of them stick out above the skin. You might be able to locate the spine with a sterile needle if it is close to the surface of a rough patch of skin, on a heel, a kneecap, or another location comparable.

You may rationally opt to leave the spine in place to dissolve gradually over a few weeks if doing so would be too similar to surgery and it isn’t causing you too much discomfort. Many individuals who frequently come into contact with cacti do precisely that. However, putting any foreign body in your skin does dramatically raise your risk of contracting an infection. Additionally, you have no idea what type of terrible stuff may have covered the spine before it became your new home, from bird feces to a decaying carcass.

The best course of action for badly lodged spines that you can’t remove on your own is to have them removed for you by a doctor, skilled First Aid professional, or other knowledgeable individual. The advantage of this is that you can ask them to check the wound for infections and assist you in keeping it clean while you recover.

There can never be just one glochid wound. A glochid that penetrates your skin most likely brought several hundred of its companions with it. Glochids make their way into your flesh to the point where their hilt would be if they had hilts, and because their shafts are barbed, it is more difficult than it should be to remove them. Glochids detach with the slightest wind.

The good news is that only a small number of cacti, including cholla and prickly pears, have glochids. There are a lot of cholla and prickly pears out there, which is bad news. The bad news is that even the best methods for getting rid of glochids on your skin only work approximately 95% of the time, leaving 5% of them behind. And when you rub that patch of skin in the wrong manner, the stupid things hurt a lot more than their size would suggest, creating pains that range from bothersome to terrible.

If you get punctured by several glochids, there is one thing you must do immediately: keep the affected area of your body away from your mouth. Unbelievably often, when someone has a patch of glochids trapped in their hand, they go for their lips and almost instinctively try to suck the irritating spines out of their skin. The risk with this is that it occasionally succeeds in sucking the glochids out of your skin and into your mouth. There, they can become lodged in your tongue, gums, or even your windpipe, where the consequences can be lethal or extremely uncomfortable.

Similarly, you should never touch your face, especially the area around your eyes.

Tweezers are your first line of defense when dealing with glochids, just as you would be with their larger, less irritable relatives. When using tweezers carefully, in bright light, with patience, and good vision, you can remove somewhat more than half of the glochids that are typically transferred during accidents. The fact that the organisms frequently fall off the plant in groups is advantageous; you may be able to remove a few dozen glochids with a single tug.

Adhesives can also be used to mass remove glochids. I’ve successfully covered the troublesome region with duct tape, ripped it off, and used it again. This effectively destroys between a third and a half of the glochids, any local hair, and sporadically the top millimeter of skin.

The best way to remove glochids appears to be a two-step procedure. With tweezers, first get rid of as many as you can. After that, wrap the damaged region in gauze and thoroughly cover it with white glue. Peel off the gauze when the glue has had time to cure. You can remove all but 5% of the glochids using a combination of the two techniques.

Unfortunately, even the most successful removal techniques frequently leave the glochids’ barbed points buried in skin. This doesn’t bother many people or simply makes them slightly uncomfortable. However, these lingering barbules can lead to extremely bothersome dermatitis, which is best treated by scraping the sores open and removing the barbules using dissecting equipment and a microscope.

It goes without saying that admiring glochids from a distance is the best course of action.

The image up top suggests one more cactus spine removal scenario: frequently enough, an entire portion of cholla will lodge in your skin and refuse to come off. It’s best to avoid the urge to use your free hand to try to pull the part away because you’ll almost surely wind up impaling it. More essential, avoid vigorously shaking the limb the cholla stem is clinging to in an attempt to remove it. The cholla has been known to come off at a high rate of speed and strike more than one person in the face.

Instead, pry the part away from you using a foreign item. A huge comb is a common item carried by desert rats who are used to live in cholla country since it is an effective tool for removing the stems of chollas by hand. If you don’t have a comb, get a clean stick—not a cactus skeleton, since those frequently still have spines attached—and use it to carefully peel the stem off by yourself with the least amount of throwing. Then look for glochid areas on your skin and prepare the tweezers and white glue.