Nopales farming question?

[nao57]

So I found videos on Youtube where people actually farm and grow nopales cactuses for eating! They really do this! its amazing. They grow them out in these desert wastelands basically and have farms of them. Then they process them a couple times a year and take them to town after making them ready to sell.

I was curious to ask about this. I'm not a latino, so this isn't really a hispanic point of view. But I am a very curious gardener. And I'm very curious about anything that will lower the grocery budget too. Plus people say these actually can taste good.

How do you grow and use nopales cactuses in gardening to use as food? Specifically... is there an ideal watering time for these? I'm already a southwest climate, so we're already conditions similar to those areas, just that we freeze in winter and have snow. when you see Youtube videos of these farms, somehow they surprisingly produce a LOT of food on these nopales farms... that has me interested too; the idea that they can produce quite a bit of food using land that other people think is useless. Plus so many people get sick from the stuff grown through chemical and machine farms, that's also part of what got me curious to ask about these.

 

[NigelJ]

Opuntia species?
I know some Opuntia will take a fair amount of cold, but Utah might be a state to far.
Have a look round and see what Opuntia grow locally, replicate conditions and bingo. If you cannot find any then the idea is probably a non starter.