Master Gardener
Master Gardeners in Arizona teach classes on cactus.
Standing on a bed of mulch in his backyard, Bill Stillman examines the small green pads sprouting in clusters from the nopal cactus.
“So what I’ll do is, I’ll cut right here,” the gardener said as he began to trim off the excess growth, a gradual process that’ll eventually give his cactus a Mickey Mouse shape. “The rest I’ll leave alone for right now.”Stillman, a master gardener with the University of Arizona’s Mohave County Cooperative Extension, is participating in a pilot gardening project through the University of Nevada-Reno, to determine whether the edible plant will take to the Mojave Desert’s arid climate.
Now we know.