We use the grasses as part of our soil strategy. We let the grasses grow naturally during the wet cool winters we have. Cool, but not cold, so it is mild enough and moist enough that these native and non-native grasses grow quite rich and strong. Many folks don’t like ‘weeds’ among their crops, but for us on a seasonal basis it does not really cause problems. The cactus slow down growth in the winter and sit half-dormant. We get hardly any winter yield…. we don’t like a lot of moisture in the soil because cactus overly wet can freeze more easily… so the growing grasses pull some of the moisture away from the cactus, perhaps reducing the cactus moisture content and helping reduce freeze damage… the tall grasses overhanging the cactus may help reduce frost from the cold clear nights we get often in winter… that’s when we get the most damage.. the clear open sky lets in teh cold of outer space.. the ‘radiative’ cold. Anything over can help reduce damage by shielding the crop plant.
These grasses set seed and dry naturally in the springtime. We let them set seed because many of the local birds flock here for seeds… also I want the seeds to be in the soil so the grasses will grow again next fall when it turns cool and sends the signal to the seeds to sprout. The weed whacking takes them all down in the mid spring when the grasses have gone dry…. so we make a straw mulch from the grasses… we don’t need to bring mulch onto the property. Mulch from other sources is always suspect.. I’d never know if it was sprayed, or treated in some other fashion. So I reduce risks of dangerous materials, our costs, and also the amount of work I have to do… but to tell the truth… I think people think I’m just lazy and don’t want to weed the cactus.
middle terraces after weedcutting
middle terraces before weedcutting
middle terraces after weedcutting
middle terraces before weedcutting
Here we have before and after photos of two sections we call the ‘Middle Terraces’…. these are new terraces.. I started working them some six years ago… and the soil is now just starting to be good enough to plant on. We planted these plants last spring.. and this year wil plant another few hundred on the next few newer terraces working up the hill. It takes me several years to prepare a terrace because I do most of it using hand tools and trying not to ‘force’ it too hard too quickly. This hillside used to be a thick chaparral… I pulled the bushes by hand or using severe weed whacking… bit by bit through the years. I don’t want to do it too quickly because I always want the majority of any tiny piece of ground to be unmoved.. so there is no erosion. I design the terraces so that rainfall is channelled onto the terraces, and held in the soil to infiltrate into the hill to be held in the rock. The ground has to be cared for…. and some spots have to be treated much more gingerly than others.
We wondered about a nice way to explain the small white spots on the cactus that the hail caused.
Then I decided to make the best of the situation and make everyone happy they got some pretty special cactus….
With each box of Grade C cactus we shipped a small note explaining the hail marks….
“First off, let me thank you all for joining with us in the nutritious and natural organically certified edible cactus! Part of the fun we get is the fine interaction with many of our customers, and knowing that they like the cactus we send them.
Another part of the fun is dealing with the vagaries of climate and how that affects the cactus growth.
Well, it wasn’t fun though when we got hail two days in a row last week… and although I thought of swatting the hail with my tennis racket, I knew it was pointless…
But then I realized that not many people are going to get the opportunity to get California cactus with some hail-stone pings….
But unfortunately… there was not enough hail-marked cactus to go around to everyone, so we had to split it up and give everyone just a little to make it fair. So the white pings and dings are your special bit of cactus.. but don’t tell too many people…. This is a once in a year event if that.
We had six weeks of amazing weather from early January to mid February 2011. This unusually warm weather caused the cactus to leaf out much more than usual for this time of year. As a result we were able to ship really fine cactus in the middle of winter.
But early and false springs can confound when the weather turns back to normal…. and on Feb 18 and 19 we got hit with hail.. which while not unknown here, when it does hit us, we usually don’t really have any tender actively-growing leaves to be damaged. But after the happy occurrence of the warm spring weather, the beautiful and luscious happy cactus leaves grew out, but they were sitting ducks for hail in February.
Only one side of the leaves got hit, and most of the leaves were spared damage due to being behind other leaves…
We’ll be able to sell many of these leaves as Grade C. The small dents in the leaves are cosmetic, and require no cutting away. We’ll make sure to spread the hurt among all boxes.. so no one gets hit with the lions’ share of pitted leaves. Some of them will go as Grade ‘D’…. those folks will probably be pretty happy to get some of these leaves in such fine condition for Grade D.
The red dots on some of the older leaves are due to drops of water freezing on the leaves and causing a ‘scab’.
At any rate… I think this is all part of the fun in agriculture.. the unknowing, the learning… the loss of control… you can’t hold back a storm, you have to grow things that will survive your local conditions. And it helps to have customers like ours who understand the seasonal variation in the quality of the leaves.. and are willing to live with what the plants can naturally produce without hurting them or the local surroundings.
Opuntia ‘Nopaleana cochinialiffera’… AKA Nopalea grande
Opuntia ficus-indica var. Anaheim
Opuntia ficus-indica var. Anaheim
Opuntia ficus-indica var. Ojai
Opuntia ficus-indica var. Ojai
Opuntia ficus-indica var.Vandy alba
Opuntia ficus-indica var.Vandy alba
Opuntia ficus indica var. Burbanks Spineless
Opuntia galapagaea
Opuntia ficus-indica, Lynheimeri X Engelmanii
Opuntia ficus-indica, var Lynnwood fruits
Opuntia ficus-indica var Santa Ynez
Opuntia ficus-indica, var Lynnwood
Opuntia microdaysys yellow
Opuntia robusta
Opuntia Subulata
Trichocereus pachanoi
Trichocereus spachianus, four feet tall
Yucca elephantipes
Agave
Agave Americana glauca
Agave Americana variegata
Agave Americana variegata
Succulent
Succulent
Succulent
Succulent
I took a walk about the place this morning, taking photos of some of the cactus growing here.
We don’t actively sell all of the plants in our collection… but we’re always willing to negotiate the purchase of a plant or more if someone wants to explore the possibilities.
Not all states allow cactus into them without a special inspection for which the state of California charges dearly.
Some states allow cactus that has no roots… so for those states we can take cuttings of some of the plants… this may make it easier, or more possible, and cheaper to ship.
Some of our plants, such as the agave and aloe have to be sent with roots, so we wash them, and prepare them for shipment carefully.
You can see that this section of our garden is very wild and rangy. we water a few times a year only, and we don’t worry too much about annual grasses and forbs. I think that a mono-culture is in essence a bad thing… it leads to soil-chemical/nutrient imbalances, easy pest-proliferation and a less diverse plant community that helps shield against these things. So we allow the weeds to grow… we mow and weedwack, the chickens eat much also, and scratch the ground killing many of the weeds. By winter-time the weeds have been trimmed or knocked down to where they are by then only a mulch on the ground. As the winter rains fall and stimulate the new weed seeds to growth, the mulch will help to shield them from the elements… it will then rot into the soil in the next year or so. This continual recycling of nutrients is a good thing for your soil.
We had a fellow write us today asking when we’d be sending bulk edible cactus shipments….
By co-incidence we were just sending off our newsletter offering list members the first harvest of the season. Yes, you too can get in on the VERY FIRST pickings of cactus this season… but only if you are a member of our newsletter list and get the info directing you to the ‘secret page’ with the order forms.
We have the newsletter to keep people apprised of our sales activities, which is all dependant on the cactus growth. Whenever we have a new offering, we tend to share this on the newsletter. It makes it sure and simple for me.. we try to let the subject line give a quick bit of info on the main purpose of that letter. We are more active with the newsletter in the spring, when the offerings may change weekly due to repressed growth and high demand… but through the late summer and winter it is monthly at best.
If you’re not a member of the newsletter, you could register from our site at www.rivenrock.com or from the field below
Right now we can only offer five pound boxes of edible cactus, and only to list members.
As the weeks go by, we’ll add larger box sizes to the offerings. The leaves are growing well now, and we have good weather forecast which keeps growth active, so we may be able to offer list members an early offering of leaves in bulk within a month. Also, within two weeks I expect we’ll be offering the cactus in 16 lb lots.
We got down to thirty degrees F last night. This is the first freeze this year.
Most years we get a dozen or so nights below freezing. When the temps get below 30 it starts to injure cell tissue in our Nopalea grande plants. The other Opuntia are tolerant of lowers temperatures. 28 is when we can expect real damage on the Nopalea grande.
Last night with 30, we might have some twisting of the leaves…. any cells that froze and burst open will cause a deterioration in the leaves, which will be sealed off by the healthy tissue, but cause unsightly scarring, and as the leaf continues growth the scarred tissue will not expand, so a curving and twisting of the leaf might occur as the leaf continues growth. I don’t think we’ll have any real issues with the temps last night… but the next few days will reveal any damage that did occur.
icy times for the cactus
This is a photo of the ice that accumulated overnight on the cat’s water dish.
You can see a change in coloration near the tip of the cactus leaf….
this might be frost damage… however the plant might not be damaged…
we’ll know more in the next few days.
It’s a shame that just a dozen nights a year can have such a bad affect on the leaves.
It is for this reason that I check the temps on occasion on nights when frost threatens.
We use the small ‘micro-sprinklers’ for most of our irrigation on the cactus.
Cactus is drought-tolerant, but the plants prefer to have regular watering.
There’s a big difference between being tolerant of something, and flourishing.
We do want production, and we want our leaves to be the very best in taste and texture,
so we water to keep the plants and leaves at a high level of quality.
It makes the plants happier to be regularly cared for.
We also have a larger water system,
but we rarely use it as it is not as efficient with water use as the micro sprinklers.
We use the big sprinklers when frost threatens the leaves,
the relatively warm water from the ground @64 degrees
will keep the leaves from sustaining too much damage from the cold…..
as long as I am sure to wake up and monitor the system, LOL.
The Law in its majestic equality,
forbids rich as well as poor to sleep under bridges,
to beg in the streets,
and to steal bread
~Anatole France~
Since 1993 we’ve been an organically certified small farm in California. I had a job with a contractor which paid our household expenses and kept us solvent even when the farm sales were less than our farm expenses. But two years ago when the factory in town closed down, and most of us were laid off, I decided to go into the cactus growing more full time. We grow a unique vegetable which we’ve shipped throughout the country. Initially we shipped the cactus leaves as nursery stock, then governmental regulations tightened and we became more aware of the laws and regulations of shipping nursery stock into other states. So we switched to shipping the younger leaves for people to eat themselves as produce. Our goal has been to ship to Health Food Stores, and restaurants as well as individuals who might be interested in the leaves we grow. Through the years our customer list grew slowly but steadily at a steady 30% rate. As the years progressed the governmental regulations seemed to grow more onerous… and the last year we’ve lost many of our older customers due to the recession. Other businesses have quit, some people seem to have stopped their regular orders. Yet, due to aggressive marketing, our sales this year are the highest we’ve ever had due to many new customers. Yet this was done at the expense of any profit we might have had. And again the government has come down on us harder. Now we have been notified that we must complete a fifteen hour ‘continuing education’ credits in water pollution and conservation. I’m all for education, but these government-mandated classes for all farms in the state are not provided for free… we must pay for them ourselves. The worse part is that they are given in the major population centers of Ventura or Monterrey to which we must take ourselves, and pay for our own lodging for the three days of the course.
It is this extra bit that has me stymied. We don’t really make any money doing this cactus business. All of our money goes to shipping, governmental fees of several thousand dollars yearly in order to maintain our licenses, permits, and associated fees and overhead expenses. Knowing that this trip will lead us into negative financial territory makes me reluctant to want to go. Knowing that due to these regulations, we must take a sample of our water and have it analyzed monthly at unknown costs…. I am seriously aggravated at the state of our laws and the level of compliance required even for tiny little micro-farms.
We have some months in which to take the classes, and maybe I’ll find some classes nearby, but this more personal posting than usual is to let the people know that governmental regulations are a double-edged sword. While they give the USA good traceability in produce, and what is perhaps the safest produce in the world, it also makes for stronger economy-of-scale issues that stymie the small grower… right at a time that we are needing MORE small farms, not less. If we were a huge corporate farm, with many employees, still we would need just one person to go to the classes, but when it’s a one-man operation, the standards are the same. The costs are the same, but they are a larger share of the profit in a small operation like ours.
My usual outlook is of hope and positive thoughts. Rarely am I dragged into this level of aggravation. I am sure I will sign up for the classes in Monterrey, they seem very informative and interesting. But people need to know that excessive governmental regulations strangle small business, they hamper the process of business formulation. We need to seriously look at what we want for this country, a place where people can transact business legally and efficiently with little governmental interference. If the government requires classes such as this, it should place them within the reach of the people, if it requires monthly water sampling, it should have a method to make such sampling efficient and inexpensive, (the paperwork mentions some samples might cost $8,000 yearly).
Excessive governmental regulations hamper small business more than the large. If due only to ‘economy of scale’.
When my dad grew up on an Ozark farm in the thirties and forties, they raised corn and wheat, raised hogs which they sold every fall and winter, and had a hundred or so chickens from which they sold eggs daily. They had five or six milk cows which they milked by hand, using the milk for food and their dogs, and one milk-can daily which they left on the roadside for the milk company to pick up. They also went to neighboring farms to supply skilled farm labor. Nowadays they would have to have many more permits, and each operation would require specialized equipment and permits and licensing. As all these regulations pile onto business, you must streamline your operations, drop aspects that have no profit and require permits, then you start to specialize. Yet a small family farm should not be a specialist farm, it should have a wide variety of foods and animals to create the ‘loop system’ for bio-diversity. Yet through the years we have had to drop livestock from our farm, first initially because we did not have proper butchering facilities, so we stopped the breeding of animals, until we had no more. We stopped using manures for fertilizer years ago because the government is worried about contamination of the soils with bacteria from manures. We stopped bringing in mulches for weed control and soil building because we could not vouch for the exact trees the wood chips came from. We are now a closed system with no outside inputs, and only material going out at a rate of a ton a month. Yet even this production is priced so low, and the shipping and governmental costs are so high, that we make no profit. One day, it might just get through my head that I’m better off just enjoying the property ourselves, and stop working so hard to make a business out of it. Yet, I know I can’t, we have such great customers….
While mulling these thoughts over in my head, I decided I needed to go for a walk. So with my camera in hand, I went down the road and took photos of the things I love about living here. And it is when in the wilderness, when I am furthest from people and the government, that I am closest to God and nature. These photos are my world, they are my daily activities and sights…. it is what is most in my heart.
The large oak once was a nut that stood its ground
Spanish Moss on Black Oak
Cutbank on the canyon road
Cutbank on the canyon road
The green lush creek bottom
The green lush creek bottom
Live Oak reaches over the creek
Live Oak reaches over the creek
Old cattle Loading Chute
Miocene Deposits, this was all once underwater
Oak Woodlands
Poison Oak vines wind up the Oak Trees
Spanish Moss on the Oak Tree
A tarantula, means rain is coming soon!
A tarantula, means rain is coming soon!
A tarantula, means rain is coming soon!
Right around the bend from home, my daily view
‘One Tin Soldier’
`Lambert-Potter’
Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago,
‘Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley-folk below.
On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone,
And the valley-people swore
They’d have it for their very own.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they’d kill.
Came an answer from the kingdom,
“With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there.”
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
Now the valley cried with anger,
“Mount your horses! Draw your sword!”
And they killed the mountain-people,
So they won their just reward.
Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain, dark and red.
Turned the stone and looked beneath it…
“Peace on Earth” was all it said.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
Our cactus plants have great fruit that ripens in late summer, and will continue to yield through January
Right now we have a special sending out approximately five pounds of fruit in little plastic ‘clamshell’ containers
We place those into the 15x15x5 inch boxes and fill in around them with Grade C cactus
Grade C is the best grade for home and restaurant and health food uses
Grade C is in general a thicker leaf, this will give you more food per leaf and less time involved in preparation
Here’s some photos of the leaves and the fruit.
In the lots of photos above we can see clamshell containers loaded with the cactus fruits.
These ones are mainly loaded with ‘robusta’ fruits.
We have five varieties that fruit, and the seasons overlap on these.
So the varieties will change as the months progress.
Most shipments will carry two colors/types of cactus fruit, so you get a little variety.
My favorite is NOT the robusta… but many people like it because it is so very deep red in color,
and they like the fact that it may carry more nutrients.
Right now we are shipping two of the representative fruits….
We are picking an Opuntia ficus-indica that we call Lynnwood
The purple one is the Opuntia robusta, deep red juice is in that fruit
We clean the fruits to a degree, but there may still be a stray glochid here and there,
we recommend you wear dishwashing gloves to handle them
These fruits are very spiny while on the plant.
We do a fair amount of wiping to clean them for you.
Two photos show the Lynnwood fruit opened up, and the rind pulled back.
This gives you a nice little ball of cactus fruit.
One photo shows the fruit sliced open… notice the little seeds,
don’t try to bite them, they are hard little things.
They are also too small and numerous to spit out…
so either juice the fruit (it is very sweet), or just swallow the little seeds.
Some folks have digestion issues with little hard seeds, so be aware if that fits you.
Observe how deep and dark red are the Opuntia robusta fruit
These are not a personal favorite of mine, but we know that many people like dark-colored juices.
Fruits and vegetables of deep red color are often said to have a very high nutritional content
I’m no nutritionist, and I don’t know. But they don’t taste as good to me as the other varieties we sell.
We’ve had people buy them for the deep red color to the juice,
it can be used to impart a pinkish hue to other foods… if you like that
The juice is almost blood-red, it’s kind of scary on the knife.
These robusta fruits have to be sliced in two, then the insides scooped out with a spoon.
They don’t separate from the rind easily the way the other fruits do.
Some of the photos show two clamshells loaded with fruit, and packed into the shipping box.
Then we pack around and over them with Grade C nopal cactus
We pack it up until we get to almost fifteen pounds.
We sell it as twelve pounds. You pay shipping on twelve pounds.
We’re selling these lots of fruit and leaves for just $40 plus the shipping costs.
We will be shipping these by UPS Ground.
