Are there any truly thornless cactus plants that have tasty fruit?

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Hmmm. Google thinks Aloe polypylla is only hardy to zone 9, which is also true of Aloe vera.

It’d be great if I could grow Aloe vera seed to seed every year, like an annual, but it looks like they usually take four years to produce seeds, so that may be challenging to achieve.

Hmmmm. A really large population of agave isn’t really feasible, and if the best-tasting plants have spines that aren’t easily removed, that goes against my goals with my garden.

It’s really a challenge to find tasty desert plants that can handle the cold and aren’t prickly! Of course I understand why – they have to defend themselves from hungry (and thirsty) animals in a difficult climate – but, see, I’m one of those hungry (and thirsty) animals, and unlike most, I’m willing to make a bargain with them to make sure they reproduce in exchange for feeding me!

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I wondered about the pros and cons of breeding spineless crops in that climate. In some ways spines can be easier to deal with than toxins in the flesh.
Are there any wild edibles in your region that could be improved? That is my first place to ask questions and look for opportunity since one parent of a hybrid can provide enough vigor and local adaptation.

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That’s an excellent question, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about. So far, the weeds I’ve found the most promising have been:

  • Salsify. The leaves taste like lettuce. The roots are supposed to taste like oysters, but when I tried them, they just tasted like generic roots to me.

  • Hoary cress (a.k.a. whitetop) is a promising weed in the Brassiceae family. The flowers taste like a slightly spicy broccoli, and the leaves taste like a slightly spicy cabbage when raw, or like spinach when cooked. If I could breed the spiciness out, they’d be perfect, and the spiciness is mild enough to be tolerable right now.

  • Hollyhocks. They self-sowed all over my yard from my neighbor’s unirrigated patch. I don’t irrigate them, and they do fine. They’re not enthusiastic about being unirrigated, but they flower and make seeds and taste okay. I’m not super enthusisatic about them as edibles because they’re either mucilaginous or sandpapery, but the flavor is fine.

  • Sunflowers. These seem to be happy to volunteer in unirrigated spaces (probably from bird seed). The leaves are sandpapery, which isn’t a great texture, but the flavor’s all right. The stem tastes pretty good – it reminds me of a juicy carrot – but the sap is so sticky that I don’t think I’ll try to eat the stem again.

  • Purslane. I find this very tasty, but it’s not all that drought tolerant. It only seems to grow in sidewalk cracks and irrigated spaces. I’d eat it more often if I could.

  • Chokeberries. These probably need to be irrigated, since they only grow by the river trail, and they’re terrible raw, but they make great jam. I hope I’ll remember to pick some when they’re ripe in a few weeks.

  • Roses. I have a neighbor who said all her rose bushes have been sown by birds, and she doesn’t water them. I find that very promising. I don’t know if the species I’ve chosen (dog rose) is as drought tolerant as that – most likely it isn’t – but it’ll be thornless and make tasty hips, and it’ll probably do okay.

  • Rye. I found a bunch of it growing feral near the highway. I’ve heard about a lot of other winter annual grains growing feral here, too. It makes sense, since our natural ecosystem seems to be a whole lot of grasses that are green and happy in winter, and brown and dead in summer.

Some of them interest me a lot (I’d love to improve the drought tolerance of purslane, and I’d be interested in breeding the mild spiciness out of hoary cress), but nothing has so far really stood out to me as a “must breed!”

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There are some much more promising species in that list.

Salsify has a lot of potential. The wiki on the genus says that three introduced species (dubius, pratensis and the edible porrifolius) have hybridised to produce new species in recent history. Repeat that process and apply selection to the hybrid swarm and you could turn it into a taprooted drought resistant lettuce or a better quality root crop.

Hoary cress is Lepidium draba. It has the same chromosome number as maca (Lepidium meyenii), plus there are a lot of other species in the genus worth considering for hybridisation work. AFAIK maca is really touchy about specific conditions and rarely adapts to other climates, but crossing with a local weed could do something interesting. Lepidium are mostly annuals, so fast generation times. Fiddly hand pollination to get the process going is the main downside.

Hollyhocks are Alcea rosea. Pretty much everything in the Malvaceae is edible if you can get past the spines (usually by breeding them out). Alcea is a pretty big genus too, so might be hybridising potential there. Large chunky flowers make hand crossing pretty easy. I wouldnt overlook the possibility of intergeneric hybrids in the Malvaceae as well. Abelomoschus has multiple edible species (mostly of hybrid origin) and wild species for outcrossing potential. I’m doing a little breeding with Rosella as a summer leaf vegetable and might try crossing it with other Hibiscus eventually. Their deep roots means they tolerate dry spells, but like most things need at least some sporadic rain to get going.

If I had a climate that alternated between reliable cool/damp winters and hot/dry summers I would mostly focus on breeding low input landrace winter annuals, especially those that produced a preservable product to eat through the summers. Then a small selection of drought tolerant perennials could provide a little fresh material in the summer to get you through.

How well do mulberries grow in your climate? I reckon they have a lot of potential as a perennial leaf vegetable that can carry on producing through dry seasons provided there is deep moisture in the soil. Fig leaves are also useful, though breeding them is a bit trickier (hand crossing mulberries is a big pain too since they are wind pollinated).

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Cool, I’ve thought salsify had a lot of potential. It tastes like lettuce and generally survives through the entire summer without any irrigation. The leaves get bitter in midsummer drought, but they’re basically sweet lettuce in spring, and they stay alive to flower just fine afterwards. Oh, the stalks in spring are juicy and tasty, too. I consider them an edible ornamental that I’m happy to let volunteer all over my yard. Most of the flowers are yellow, but I love the occasional purple ones, so I’m trying to make sure to gather lots of seeds from the purple ones and deliberately sow them all over my yard, in the hopes that I get more purple eventually.

I got some Mammoth Sandwich Island salsify seeds, in the hopes of getting them to cross. I’ve sown most of them, and none of them sprouted, so maybe they aren’t as good a fit for my climate, but I’ll keep on trying. It seems to me that crossing a cultivated variety with my tasty weeds (of the same species) would be a great idea.

Any other Malvaceae species you’d recommend? We have loads of common mallow, as well; it’s a fairly common weed, and it’s drought tolerant, and it stays alive all summer without irrigation, and the flavor is okay even if the texture is sandpapery, so I’m cool with it being in my yard.

I’ve seen sorghum volunteering from birdseed in unirrigated spaces. Sorghum is tastier than most grains, in my opinion, and much more pleasant to harvest – no pokiness, just big seeds that don’t need to be processed in order to snack on them. I’m sure the volunteers are broomcorn sorghum, and I’d really like to grow sweet sorghum in order to make syrup from it, so I’m going to see how that does before adding wilder sorghums to my yard. If the sweet sorghum doesn’t work out, I can easily go for the wilder ones; if it does, I’d rather have delicious syrup as well as a grain.

I’d also like to grow sugar cane. I’m not sure how well that will do here – it’d definitely need to be mulched well through the winter, since it’s not hardy to zone 7 – but the fact that it’s a vigorous grass that dies back to the roots and regrows every year makes me think it has a good shot of doing well in the right microclimate here.

There are mulberries, black walnuts, and rose of sharon hibiscuses everywhere. Those are all perennials that seem to do great here. Mulberries and black walnuts are usually in yards or by the river trail, so they probably need some irrigation, but probably not all that much. I’m not planning to grow either of them, even though they do well here, because I’m allergic to walnuts and my body doesn’t seem to like mulberries, either.

Rose of sharon hibiscus has a lot of potential. It’s often used as a carefree ornamental. I believe I’ve heard you can eat the green seed pods, like okra? I haven’t tried, but I find them to be very pretty, especially since they bloom all summer long, and the fact that they’re edible is promising.

I really like the idea of roselle hibiscus, because it has an actual fruit that I’ve enjoyed in a dried state, but it’s not hardy to my zone, so I’ve assumed it wouldn’t work here. Do you think it could be crossed with rose of sharon? If so, there may be potential.

Oh! Crossing hoary cress with maca is an interesting idea! I’ve looked at maca as a plant I’d love to try, but the fact that it’s so finicky has made me think it was probably a no-go. Hmmm. If I grew maca indoors under my grow light through the winter, I could probably control the growing conditions enough to get some flowering plants that are healthy enough to be crossed with hoary cress in the spring.

Catnip is a very, very common xeriscape ornamental here. I like the taste. I’m a little concerned that the feral cats in my neighborhood may destroy any plantings I make.

Echinecea is another very, very common ornamental unirrigated spaces. Tulips, too! They bloom so early in the year that they use the residual water left in the soil from winter to flower and make seeds, then disappear back down to the bulbs before summer drought starts. One of my neighbors has a patch of tulips and echinecea, which looks like entirely tulips for a month in spring, and then entirely echinecea all summer. I find that to be an admirably clever use of space, and I’d like to copy her idea.

Daffodills behave just like tulips and do well here, but they’re non-edible. Bearded irises, too.

I think the bushes with little purple flowers that grow as weeds all over the place are probably alfalfa. I should remember to take pictures so I compare them closely with photos of alfalfa and make sure.

I’ve seen flax growing as a weed in a neighbor’s grass. The flowers are pretty, and I know it’s an edible, that tickled me pink. That was an irrigated space, so I’m not sure how well it would do in an unirrigated space.

Apples do great here. There used to be loads of community apple orchards that were shared by whole neighborhoods, most of which were tragically chopped down in the 50s because the land was worth a lot of money if it was sold to put another house on it. I’d really like to see a return to those neighborhood orchards that everyone is welcome to pick from and eat when the fruit is ready.

There are still feral apple trees in many of the parks here, and apple trees are extremely common in people’s yards. I think they usually need a little irrigation, but no special care. I’m definitely planning to plant apple seeds and see if I can get trees that need no irrigation whatsoever.

Stone fruits like peaches, plums, and apricots do great here. Peach trees are apparently a bit fiddly because they need the most irrigation and they often die within seven years because of diseases. But there are peach orchards around here, quite a lot of them, so clearly they’re not all that challenging.

In theory there should be wild juneberries around here, but I have yet to find any. I keep watching for them.

My daughter found miner’s lettuce out in the mountains when she went camping. She said she loved it. I badly want to find seeds from some of those local wild patches. I’ve read somewhere (here on this forum?) that it doesn’t care about sunflower allelopathy, so I’d love to stick it under my Jerusalem artichokes.

Speaking of sunflowers, I was really hoping yacon would do well here, but it seems to be doing horribly . . . (sigh). Think it would be possible to cross it with another sunflower species that does well here, like one of the wild species or Jerusalem artichokes?

Tree of heaven and Siberian elm are both common tree weeds here. I would never plant them on purpose, but Siberian elm samarras are quite tasty (when they’re not full of elm seed bugs, which unfortunately they usually are). The leaves taste okay. I’ve never tried tree of heaven leaves, but I’ve heard they can be edible?

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Wow- you have such an amazing local flora. Apples growing like weeds suggests a climate comparable to Kazakhstan, and there is loads of species Malus diversity which should be crossed into semi-feral domestic apples, though not many people are taking the time to try. The Rosaceae is broadly fertile between genera (as shown by Luther Burbank who crossed a few dozen genera onto a female native raspberry, and almost every cross produced seeds). Starting with a species that has natural local vigour and some edibility, then finding relatives to cross with it to improve its utility is a powerful approach. Stone fruit is a lot easier if you embrace the short natural lifespan of the trees. They grow fast because they invest very little in their structure and defences, but that just means you can turn over many generations of breeding in your lifetime. Again Burbank proved you can do all sorts of weird crosses with them in the Rosaceae.

I tried salsify seeds a few times and never got germination. The most likely explanation is the seeds were dead on arrival and have short viability in a packet, so don’t blame yourself. Sometimes there is an obscure trick to getting something growing. Worst case scenario, maybe get a box of seedlings from another grower. There might be some microbes in the soil they need and that will often transplant the helpful bugs into your garden. Hand crossing salsify might be moderately fiddling, but you only need a few dozen definite hybrid seeds to get things going. Once you hit the F2 generation things usually get by being bee pollinated or selfing to sort out the diversity in the genome from the crossing event.

Sorghum has some good varieties for human consumption. It is a major crop in some regions of Africa where it is often too dry for maize to compete. Look for the white seeded strains, since the pigments in the seeds interfere with protein digestion (hence why those strains are usually used for animal feed).

The malvaceae is a big mess as far as I can tell. The chromosome numbers within a formal genus are all over the place, and crosses between species without matching chromosome counts often lead to polyploid new species (a common process). Given the flowers are usually chunky and easy to handle, and each cross generates a few dozen seeds, I would just go crazy and cross everything with everything. As long as you label the mother parent when you harvest any seed from hand crossed flowers then you can usually figure out the pollen parent if anything grows from it. That way you can take a single female flower and bomb it with the pollen of every other species flowering at the time. Pollen storage for Malvaceae should also be possible if you can get it dry and cold enough. I would give roselle a go in your climate- they take heat and dry very well. If you can get a grex of different strains there might be wiggle room to select for rapid maturity before cold weather becomes a threat. I grow two strains in a mix but there is no sign of spontaneous crossing yet, so I think I will have to do a hand cross myself (maybe this summer if I get time- I find I can handle one hand crossing project a year at most, and my lima bean strains are begging to be mixed up asap).

I was thinking the same thing with the maca. Grow it in a greenhouse/pots/etc under controlled conditions. Fiddle with the sowing time so you can get it to flower at the same time as the wild hoary cress. Then hand cross (easier to control pollination on small potten plants, but you should be able to manage the reverse cross onto the weedy species with care too).

Yacon is very subtropical. My place is even too dry for it to do well without irrigation. I find the tubers a bit gross to eat- slightly soapy, fake sweetness, hard to store after harvest. A cross with Helianthus isn’t impossible but probably a long shot (Asteraceae intergeneric crosses seem to be a bit more uncommon, though I might be wrong here). Controlled hand crosses on Asteraceae can be a pain, but luckily yacon is self incompatible, so that makes life easier at least.

Weedy trees have immense potential as summer drought time perennial vegetables. I would look into those possibilities. We have leucaena growing wild here, introduced to help cattle farmers (so low eating quality strains) but then gone feral in abused/neglected spaces, which means the native plant warriors descend on it with truckloads of herbicides to save the planet from the steady march of this useful edible shrub.

How does siberian pea shrub do for you? There might be breeding potential there. I believe there are a handful of desert legume shrubs that produce edible vegetable pods, but I don’t know exactly how much cold you are dealing with. Some are thorny too from memory.

Your obsession with bananas, sugarcane and cacti makes me wonder if you should be hybridising your living arrangements with Florida or Costa Rica. I used to be the same, dreaming about growing hybrid chestnuts and hazels in my subtropical steam house climate. Luckily I reached out to Mark Shepard and he set me straight and told me to focus on species already accessible in the local environment. I have a few chestnuts from my efforts, but they are probably a dozen generations away from being a useful food source. Instead I turned my attention to my local bunya nut which grows like a weed here, married it up with its south american cousin the parana pine, and now have hundreds of carefree seedlings starting to take off. I’m hopeful I can do the same for you and your amazing local ecosystem.

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You reminded me of Siloe from suburban homestead with your salisify attempts. He went with the black one. It sound like maybe you’ve never seen him but I’m sure you’ll love his channel.

Siloe Suburban Homestead Black Salsify

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Very interesting thread, you all got going on here.

Salsify, or a wild relative
I don’t know what hoary cress is, right off.
Hollyhocks, got tons of them, didn’t know you could eat them
Sunflowers, lots of wild ones and others feral in the garden, birds get them all
Purslane, got tons of it. it does really well in the garden itself as a weed, kind of living mulch
Choakchrerries, not familiar with them
Roses, lots of them, been trying to breed bigger, sweeter hips with a little success *make a note to remind me if you want seeds
Rye, grains won’t grow well for me other than corn and sorghum

I’ve tried growing multiple types of prickly pear but only two do well, our native kind and another much larger one. Both make tasty fruit, but it’s mostly seeds and of course the spines.

I have a lot of the big white flowered yucca, again not a clue it might be edible.

I have a 50-year-old Epiphyllum plant. I think mine is hydrocereus but not sure. It blooms profusely but has never set a fruit. I wonder if it is self-incompatible or if there just isn’t anything to pollinate it. Of course, it isn’t hardy.

Not much more to offer, just again, great reading in this thread.

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This kind of conversation gets me so worked up! The world is brimming with all sorts of amazing potential breeding projects. With 8 billion people wandering around surely we can scrape together enough time and attention to give all of them a decent try? I figure one lifetime is enough to domesticate almost any wild species if you are working in a compatible biogeography.

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There are eat the weeds videos, eat the weeds books and even an eat the weeds website. I think the premise of the eat the woods movement is that you get a lot more mineral and nutrient density in the wild plants than a diet consisting of highly processed domesticated plants. It definitely opens up a lot more avenues for diversity in food. Before such material became available the only time in my life I ever heard of such things was visiting my grandmother and grandfather’s farm in Missouri. I had always thought only rural folk were into such things.

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We need to start the idea of “breed the weeds” (then eat them!)

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I don’t think I can pass that one by the HOA :upside_down_face:

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If it is a completely new species to science then it can’t be on any banned lists yet :smiley:

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You think I have amazing local flora? Wow, that’s neat to hear!

I think I’m very blessed in my exact location. Living very near a huge river (it’s literally about half a block away from my house) is very unusual in a desert. The river trail, which is a public area, has all sorts of wonderful fruit trees that don’t grow in unirrigated spaces, and they do great without any care. My neighborhood has a high water table – as in, basements cannot be built here, and we could easily dig wells if it were legal (which it is not). That’s very unusual in Utah.

I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed with cacti. I just want tasty fruit that can consistently grow without any care here, and cacti seemed like a good place to look for ideas.

Wanting to try sugar cane is pure whimsy. I’ve never had the chance to eat it fresh, and I’d like to, and that’s 90% of the reason I want to try growing it, at least once. I wouldn’t be broken up about it if it didn’t work, and I think it’d be fun to try. I recently saw a YouTube video with a gardener in 8a (I’m in 7b) saying sugar cane grows great for him as long as he mulches it well in the winter, which makes me think, “I’d like to give that a shot!” Especially since it’s supposed to like really hot temperatures in summer. It may not be crazy about my winters, but it may like my summers a lot. And I have a perfect microclimate for it in an empty spot, and I’ve been trying to figure out precisely what to put there.

As for bananas, I’m not really sure why I want to grow those so much. It’s not an obsession; it’s more like a feeling that this is something I’m supposed to be working on. Usually that means something amazing is going to come out of the effort, and it may not be the thing I thought it was going to be. If it winds up being something totally different than what I think I’m supposed to accomplish, that’s okay! All I know is that I’m supposed to be doing it.

I would say what I’m obsessed with is diversity. I’d really like to find (or breed) a little something of everything to suit my tastes, my desires, and my ecosystem. Does that make sense?

Also I’m obsessed with learning new things. I suspect a lot of us here can relate. :smiley:

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The exact location in a complex landscape makes such a huge difference to what will grow. You only have to observe wild plants in extreme deserts to see this effect on steroids- every little crack or dip which collects more grit or moisture is an oasis. Nature gets around this by flinging seeds everywhere and letting them figure it out individually. Humans can only do a little better using our eyeballs and fingers to find good spots (and sometimes miss suitable spots when we assume are not good enough).

I reckon the plant spirits have been whispering “banana yucca” in your ear, but you keep running off to buy exotic seeds before they can finish their message. I’ve tried banana yucca fruits before and they are quite lovely- syrupy, not too many seeds, highly productive (though moth pollination may not be reliable everywhere). The genus is manageable but diverse enough, should be completely cross fertile. The petals are used as a vegetable as well. Succulent collecting nerds can probably supply more species than you can use and cold tolerance is high in several species. I suspect pollen could be stored as well to facilitate crossing, and hand crosses should be simple with chunky flowers (though you might be up a ladder).

I almost forgot to suggest you consider agave x manfreda intergeneric hybrids (“mangave”- a name I find strangely repulsive for some reason- like some rugged thorny rosette which smells of Axe body spray). The wide diversity of the cross coupled with semisucculence in the manfreda and shorter generation times could open doors there. Not sure if anyone has tried yucca x agave- they are close relatives so why not give it a go if the chance arises? Manfreda are also spineless. Beschorneria is also spineless and could also be thrown into the mix. Heck, even Hostas are in the family and they make decent leaf vegetables in cool/damp climates. I am 99% sure nobody has even thought of crossing Hosta with agave or yucca. If you can’t flower them in Arizona there is probably some hosta nerd on the coast who will send you pollen.

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I’m planning to grow banana yuccas, for sure! In fact, I’ve already planted some seeds. I’m excited to hear you’ve enjoyed their fruits. That’s a good sign. :smiley:

Your suspicion is incorrect. :wink: I considered for awhile that maybe I was supposed to grow something like bananas, such as pawpaws or apples that taste like bananas, but whenever I’ve started thinking that way, I’ve gotten a very obvious “no” feeling: dark, muddled, confused. Whenever I’ve thought, “No, I really should be growing bananas,” I’ve felt bright, clear, peaceful, and happy.

Like most Christians, I call this the Holy Ghost. You may have a different name for it. Either way, I’ve learned over the decades that when I obey those external feelings (they’re not from me), somehow everything goes right, and when I ignore them, everything goes wrong. Even when it makes no logical sense. I’ve learned to unquestioningly trust the Holy Ghost. It’s always the best choice.

I love your creative ideas. You have terrific suggestions. I’d love to do lots of them as well as bananas. For some reason, Musaceae is one of the many, many plant families I’m supposed to have growing in my garden. I don’t know why, but I’m sure it’ll work out the way it’s supposed to!

Honestly, I’d love to have something tasty thriving in my garden from pretty much every plant family on Earth. Wouldn’t that be so cool? :wink:

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I feel inexplicably drawn to some species of plants as well. I think you have to be to have a decent chance of sustaining a project long enough to get results and share it with others. I am definitely jealous of your access to all sorts of genetics in the rare plant trade that is impossible to get in Australia.
Imagine if whoever it was encountered a mutated banana while wandering in the desert for 40 nights instead of a burning bush. Actually, scratch that, imagine if plants could just directly order us to do what they needed. We could elect a bristlecone pine as president for life and not have to worry about politics for a few thousand years.

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You’re right, living in Australia gives you tons of extra difficulties. I understand why the Australian government does that – the continent has a very precious ecosystem – but I imagine you frequently think, “I’m responsible! I’m not going to introduce invasive species! Please let me have access to these rare genetic materials, in order to breed things of great value to many!”

Ha ha ha ha! A bristlecone pine for president! Well, given that I’m Christian, I do believe we’re going to have an incorruptible king-for-life when the Millennium starts. :wink: I’m looking forward to it!

This may sound hokey, but I’m starting to work on learning how to listen to plants. I suspect plants are just as capable of intelligence as animals, and some species may be highly intelligent indeed.

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Ww started with a Native Indigenous cookbook from the Tohono O’odam people who lived and grew crops along the river and knew how to gather from the Sonora desert. Many areas have those old cookbooks, and good ones include growing and harvesting of edible flowers and vegetables, even if its a wild species utilized. I enjoy a monthly trip to a used bookstore for desired cookbooks on local foods. Research who lived in your area and how wild plants were cooked or utilized for fiber. The yucca plant fiber is also used for weaving, baskets, shoes…rope.

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We love eating holyhocks, and they do self sow…we eat tge laves before the spike of flowers appears. Then we only eat the colored petals, to me taste like romaine lettuce.

We also harvest the bean pods from Blue Palo verde tree, they are delicious :yum: and similar to edemame, but there is one or two days to harvest before they are tasteless. The tree is able to survive extreme drought once estabilshed. I have 2 year old trees, 15 feet tall…and produce several pounds of pods with edible beans.

We also have milled the mesquite beans from Honey Mesquite trees…tastes like maple syrup and the powder is from the dried pods, not the seed. The seed is really hard and must be milled a different way…we haven’t tried yet. The leftover seeds from the pods are better soaked in water and drink the sweet juice.