Prickly Pears in UK, any advice?

[tumbling tom]

Hi Guys

Has anyone here succesfully grown prickly pears and I dont just mean as an ornamental plant but actually had some fruit grow?

[ameno]

I haven't, but I'm attempting to.
The proper prickly pear (Opuntia ficus-indica) is not hardy and would need to be grown indoors in the UK. However, most species of Opuntia give edible fruit, and they all taste much the same, and there are few species of Opuntia which are hardy outdoors in the UK (in the South, at least) as long as they have well-drained soil.

I'm growing one such variety myself. I'm not certain of the species, but I think it is probably Opuntia humifusa (which is apparently the best species for growing in the UK, as it's more wet tolerant than most and fruits while fairly young).
I bought four pads from an eBay seller summer 2019 who grows his outside in Yorkshire (he was selling them as tortoise food, actually), and three of them rooted and they've grown well this year. They are currently on my patio in pots, and are still fine, even though it has already gone below zero a few times.
I don't know how long it will be until I get fruit, but apparently they grow pretty quickly once established, and fruit from a relatively small size, so I'm hopeful for 2022 (they're still too small to fruit this year).

[DannyK]

I've seen the pads sold as vegetables in Brixton market.

[burnie]

I got flowers but no fruit when I had one in my greenhouse in Leicestershire back in the 1980's.

[greenishfing]

When I once spent a good long time in Spain a good few years ago I was talking about them to a friend. The next time he visited he brought some of the "leaves", broke them into pieces and sort of dunked the pieces in my soil. They all took. When I left a couple of years later I had several prickly pear bushes growing really well. No fruit however at that point.

[tumbling tom]

Hi guys. Thanks for the answers

So by the looks of it getting it to fruit is not going to be easy

[burnie]

Worth trying if only for the flowers, seem to remember the greenhouse smelt lovely.

[Hereford fruit grower]

There was a story many years ago from Victoria, British Columbia. A man was growing prickly pears successfully outside and I think they fruited.

It's a very similar climate to the UK except for a drier summer and wetter winter.

There are also good online videos from that region on how to prune figs for this climate where the 2nd crop rarely ripens. But I digress ...

[ChingfordHarry]

Hi

I've grown two Opuntia plants from some I found in the south of France (near Avignon), one from a pad and one from a seed. What I noticed there was that the plants had ripe fruit at the same time as being in flower. Well, this June/July one of mine flowered having been put in a pot outside since 2019 (this is Chingford, East London). The fruit seemed to set but they are still quite green and have shown no sign of ripening.

Is it it likely that these will ripen next year, or if I want to eat London-grown prickly pears should I move them to somewhere under glass?

[ChingfordHarry]

Okay, time for an update on this. My opuntia survived the winter outside (other plants perished...) and held onto some of the fruits that set last year (2022). This year a few have turned a gorgeous deep red and a few more flower buds have appeared - looks like they will blossom a bit later than last year. Last year's fruits are in the middle of the photo, one of this year's flower buds (probably the ovary, actually) on the top right.

So the answer to "will they produce fruit in the UK?" is yes.

[Babru]

I've had prickly pear jam abroad, and I didn't think it had much flavour, just sweet. I take it the fruit itself is tasty, as you've gone to this bother?

[ChingfordHarry]

They don't have a strong flavour. When they're ripe, I think I'd call them sweet and mildly fruity - not a patch on a decent raspberry, for example, but better than the vast majority of supermarket strawberries. It's possible to buy them at Middle Eastern or Asian greengrocers round here when they're in season - often advertised as "spineless" but they still have the nasty glocids that are incredibly irritating, so you have to be a bit careful when handling them (for most people, the best advice would be "don't"!).

As for growing them, it wasn't really much effort. Dry the pad out for a week or so (to prevent rotting), stick the cut end in compost and sit back and wait!

[ameno]

Mine has a couple flowers coming as well, despite not being very big yet (like yours, it got through the cold winter outdoors without much trouble).

Your variety (and I'm guessing mine is the same), seems to be the same as the one I saw growing all over Lycabettus Hill in Athens when I was there last November. I decided to pick a few ripe ones while I was there (the ripest seem to fall off on there own) and take them back to my accommodation to try them.
The fruit of this species tastes a bit different to the "proper" one (same genus, different species, but all Opuntia are edible). They are slightly more sour, but quite pleasantly so, and they also have very dark red juice. They do have a higher seed to flesh ratio, mind you.

[ChingfordHarry]

Yes, that sounds like mine. I picked one today since it seemed less than rock-hard. The juice would do a beetroot proud (in colour, anyway), but as you say, full of seeds. It was much sharper than I remember them from the South of France, but that wasn't a surprise. Unless we get a summer like last year's (so they ripen properly) I think I'll probably stick to admiring them on the plant, and if I want to eat any I'll visit a local greengrocer's.

[ameno]

Yes, that sounds like mine. I picked one today since it seemed less than rock-hard. The juice would do a beetroot proud (in colour, anyway), but as you say, full of seeds. It was much sharper than I remember them from the South of France, but that wasn't a surprise. Unless we get a summer like last year's (so they ripen properly) I think I'll probably stick to admiring them on the plant, and if I want to eat any I'll visit a local greengrocer's.

When I tried those ones in Greece, I found that they weren't fully ripe until they were quite soft, so I think maybe yours just weren't quite ripe yet and should have been left a bit longer. They seem to keep for quite a while even when ripe and detached from the plant (there were loads littering the ground, and most of them still seemed sound and undamaged), so it may be best to wait as long as possible, since there seems to be little risk of them spoiling from going over-ripe.

The ones you had in the south of France may well have been proper prickly pears, of the tender species which we can't grow here, which are larger, less seeder, and taste less sour.