Project Steev

Harvesting Saguaro Fruit

As I mentioned yesterday, Jessica and I camped out in the desert Friday night and then got up at sunrise to gather the fruit of the saguaro cactus. Photos are now on my Flickr page.

It was a really fun and new experience for me. Iconic of Arizona, the saguaro is still a really strange plant to me even after I've lived here for 8 months. In the spring, little green pods start growing on their tops, and then big white waxy flowers bust out, and then the flower dry out and in June the pods turn sort of reddish and they start cracking open. They'll do this until the summer monsoon rains really get going.

So people have been going out and harvesting. I expressed interest in it recently and so Jessica took me to a place she knew. It was really cool and fun, and it was great to be out there first thing in the morning as the sun rose. It's sort of a neat couple thing to do, because it's really a teamwork thing. one person to wield a long pole, usually 2 pieces of cactus rib (the bone-like structures of the saguaro that is left over after it dies and dries up) tied together with twine to form a long enough tool, and one person to hold a bucket. The pole person gently taps and nudges at a ripe fruit pod until it breaks off and then the bucket person catches it. Sometimes the gooey fruit inside comes out as it falls and splatters all over, so in the end we were both spattered with little gobs of dark red goo. It's a pretty sensual fruit - a really juicy pulpy mass about the size of a large strawberry, inside the green-red rind/shell, full of crunchy little seeds, and really sweet, getting sweeter as the season progresses. They also dry out a little and get easier to eat as the summer goes on.

I'm really glad we went, it was a really nice thing to do together on our last morning before we were to part for 30 days. Anyway, check out the cool pics.