I have several pp cactus growing in my yard as ornamental plants. They are the yellow-flowering variety, with very small clusters of barely visible stickers. Does anyone now of a market for the pads, or a fast way to compost the trimmings? These plants are 4-5 feet tall and I must trim them often and figure there must be a valuable use for the pads. Thank you so much. - DLee

Dennis,
Where are you located at? If you are in my neck of the woods, I might come over and get a pickup load and run through my shredder then feed it to the compost bins.

Greg...

I'm in Ft. Worth. Good little haul from Nevada

Dennis, these leaves are edible if you remove the stickers. They also compost well. When I lived in Odessa, I used prickly pear as an ornamental all the time. I composted unwanted growth whole. Gar has a great idea too. Shredding would make this compost fast. They are largely gelatinous and will decompose quickly.

you say youre in ft. worth? the dallas farmers market would be a good place to go to see how many of the pads they would buy. also the fruit from them are quite tasty and make good jam. i have two pp that i started eight years ago. very productive they are to be sure. i have a problem this year maybe you can help me with. my pp have developed brown spots on the pads that get very large very fast, then the pads turn brown and fall off. havent seen this before. any ideas/ cures? thanks.