"Nell Reynolds" wrote in message
. ..
I would be leery of this. The spines, particularly the longer, stiffer
ones, would take FOREVER to rot, while the "pears," being mostly water and
soft pulp, would rot quickly. While it might make very rich humus, that
humus would be loaded with the spines that would make working the soil,
i.e., planting seedlings in it, would be quite painful.
I knelt once upon an invisible spine, driving it clear to the kneecap. It
broke off, and my hubby had to work carefully to extract the broken spine
with tweezers. I hobbled for nearly a month, and have been fearful of
gardening around cactus ever since.

Nell S


"Steve Coyle" wrote in message
om...
Howdy folks,
I did a search on this in the group and saw a lot of interesting
postings on Prickly Pear Cactus ( By the way for many new folks
checking in, you can find out a lot in a hurry just by doing a search
within this news group on your question )

A question I had was can you compost Prickly Pear Cactus. I assume
that anything that grows and rots will eventually rot down to a usable
form, but I was wondering if anyone had actually tried it.
I was thinking of building a wood and wiremesh bin off the ground,
with a tarp under it, to prevent any from falling through and just
filling the sucker and letting it rot down.
Seems strange,but I just have this affection for bio mass.
Steve Coyle


All good advice,ranchers burn the spines off with a blowtorch,before feeding
to cattle.There is your ultimate composter-steer.


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