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A while back I moved to the American southwest, specifically the high desert near Albuquerque. At the end of last spring, when I was moving out of my rental house, I snagged some seeds from the local cacti, trees, and shrubs that I really liked the look of. When I moved into my new place, I found a few native cacti growing on a path near my house, and snagged one of the fruits to harvest the seeds.
Unfortunately I was super busy at the time and never got around to labeling the storage containers. Now that I'm settled in and less busy, I figured I'd try sprouting a few of each batch of seeds and see what pops up. If I like them and can get them established, I'll use them to populate my place with more water-friendly plants (the previous owners didn't give a shit about water conservation, an opinion shared by the majority of the neighborhood unfortunately).
Anyway, once I get the seeds sown I'll post more pics, but I'll go ahead and get the thread started now.
I know that the top left is the native opuntia that I harvested near my current place (this cactus will probably be featured in another thread soon). The bottom right looks like the seeds I harvested from the rental house, it was from a low-growing columnar cactus that produces tons of pups and has deep red flowers. I think the top right comes from another rental house harvest from a plant that looks like a droopy yucca, produces a flower stalk and seed pods that almost look like a walnut hull. Idk though, I'm trying to pull this all from memory, we'll see what seeds are actually viable, and what plants they are once I grow them out.
-------------------- “The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you” -NDT
Its still almost too early to plant, but I have a seed tray ready to start some seeds.
I figured out that seeds on the bottom right are claret cup hedgehog cacti. The round seeds in the bottom-center container are vitex seeds.
I also went to my local garden expo and got some free seeds, so I'll be sprouting some canyon grapes, sunflowers, bush beans, and some hatch green chiles (1000 SHU).
I also bought some seedlings, so I'll be planting a few desert globemallow, some thyme for ground cover in the back yard, some numex hatch chiles, and some squash. I'll probably put the veggies in some self-wicking bucket planters that I'll be making shortly (pics to follow).
I also ventured out into the open space behind my house and managed to find one bird of paradise seed, and harvested about 15 lbs of various opuntia pads. I plan to let those pads callous over and disperse them back into the open space. It used to be a golf course I think, so its fairly new wild space and has problems maintaining any topsoil, and new plants are hard to establish naturally via seed because of the ongoing megadrought in the SW, so I figured I'd help start some plants that provide food, shelter, and water storage for the local fauna. I'm hoping to find a public stand of tree cholla and harvest some cuttings for the open space as well.
Anyway, will post pictures as I make more progress.
-------------------- “The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you” -NDT
Wife got sick, and most of this effort didn't pan out. Surprisingly enough, the native opuntia pads that I collected survived just sitting out on my sidewalk with the few dead leaves and twigs that collected around them to cover their roots. I ended up chucking them into the open space behind our place, in the hopes that they'll take root and maybe make use of any spare irrigation water coming from my garden plot.
We ended up losing a couple of shrubs that require more water and resources than I'm willing to give during this time period, so I'm hoping to slowly replace those spots in the irrigation system with more native and wildlife-friendly stuff.
I still have a good bit of the seeds from the OP, and will be attempting a traditional "Three Sisters" companion vegetable garden this growing season.
-------------------- “The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you” -NDT
Quote: Data said: Wife got sick, and most of this effort didn't pan out. Surprisingly enough, the native opuntia pads that I collected survived just sitting out on my sidewalk with the few dead leaves and twigs that collected around them to cover their roots. I ended up chucking them into the open space behind our place, in the hopes that they'll take root and maybe make use of any spare irrigation water coming from my garden plot.
We ended up losing a couple of shrubs that require more water and resources than I'm willing to give during this time period, so I'm hoping to slowly replace those spots in the irrigation system with more native and wildlife-friendly stuff.
I still have a good bit of the seeds from the OP, and will be attempting a traditional "Three Sisters" companion vegetable garden this growing season.
Sorry to hear that.
Yeah Opuntia are survivors! I have a ton of them! How they can survive single digit wet cold is beyond me, but mine do every year.
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