Agave & Cactus Talk
Talking about Agave & Cactus from farms to products. I will cover using permaculture practices on farms for the new industry of California Agave & Cactus, such as the use of animals & biomimicry. California Agave today is mainly being used for spirits, and cactus fruit is mainly being used for consumption or wine. I farm both agave & cactus in Hi Vista & Lancaster, which are cities in Northeast Los Angeles County, & in the Western Mojave Desert. I will talk about my experiences, observations, opinions & tips on Agave & Cactus farming in California. I will cover what i believe the future is for these 2 plant families in california, what products i believe they most will be used for, and exciting plants. Some examples of agave products can include fiber, food, inulin, spirits, or syrup. Cactus products can be animal forage, fruit, jams, juices, & wine. Both agave and Cactus can be great plants to add for fire protection as their leaves are full of water. I will also cover the use of animals such as goats on my farms, and various systems i use to improve it, such as rainwater collection. If you have any topics you would like me to cover, or any questions feel free to leave a comment.
Listen on:
Episodes
Friday Jul 04, 2025
Friday Jul 04, 2025
In this episode I am driving through the LA National Forrest and talking about Chapparal Yucca aka Quixote aka Spanish bayonet, latin name hesperoyucca whipplei. Great plant!
Saturday Jun 28, 2025
Saturday Jun 28, 2025
Talking about 8 CA Native Cacti, and why I think they have significant potential to be dryfarmed in California. I discuss how you may profit off them, how ive profited from them, and how ive utilized them. I also mention 1 Naturalized and 1 usa Native Cactus. Use this podcast as a primer for farming California Native cactus and creating a framework to farm natives in your local. Here are the 10 plants i mentioned today:
Cylindropuntia Imbricata, CA Native
Cyllindropuntia Imbricata subs Spinosior, debatable CA native, AZ for sure.
Cylindropuntia Echinocarpa , Silver Cholla, CA Native
Cylindropuntia Ramosissima, CA Native
Echinocactus Polycephalus subs Polycephalus, red barrel cactus, CA native
Echinocactus Polycephalus subs Xeranthemoides, gold barrel cactus, CA native
Opuntia Basilaris subs basilaris, beaverstail cactus,
Opuntia Phaeacantha, Tulip prickly pears, CA Native
Opuntia Littoralis , CA naturalized, Native to baja.
Opuntia linguiformis, Texas prickly pears, TX Native
Contact me if you need any of these for your farm. I farm them at scale mostly. Have a great day peeps.
Wednesday Jun 25, 2025
Wednesday Jun 18, 2025
Wednesday Jun 18, 2025
Hablando de unas de las razones porque me encanta crecer agaves y Nopales juntos. Los dos se complementan mucho. Gracias por escuchar.
Tuesday Jun 17, 2025
Tuesday Jun 17, 2025
Hablando un poco de como crecer agave y Chivas a la misma vez es algo beneficioso para el sembrador.
Tuesday Jun 10, 2025
Tuesday Jun 10, 2025
part 2, 11-20
11- if you have animals combine with animal manure in a biodigester to make your own natural biofuel and run your heating and cooking utilities off that.
12 - process leaves into fiber and dry it and sell it, make clothes or w/e
13- plant giant agave as a windbreaker and firebreak to help save you on water and potentially future emergencies.
14- make distillates from the quiotes
15- sell the agave leaf skin, used in mexixan cuisines
16- sell agave roots, sustainable harvesting
17- create your own hybrids, interspecies hybrids. TC them. patent and lease them
18- create new farms with the plants you sell, sell installation services
19- sell carbon credits
20- seek grants or money for Carbon sequestration or heavy metal sequestration , restoration
21, sell to ngos or gov looking to restore. grow natives and restore.
Monday Jun 02, 2025
Monday Jun 02, 2025
part 1, ways 1-10
1- sell your leaves to a BBQ spot
2- grind it up and ferment it and sell as an animal sillage
3 - sell your pinas to distillers, or create your own spirit from the pinas.
4- make and sell pulque,
5- aquamiel distillates, pulque distillates
6- sell to agave wine producers, niche market may need to do yourself
7- sell agave stalks whole or grinded to packaging producers to use in a packaging products, or sell it yourself
8- sell agave plants, preferably your pups, keep seeded, ca, usa and global market.
9- harvest the quiotes and collect seed, bubils, sell the fresh quiotes at farmers markets, to chefs, sell older quiotes and building products or stakes
10 - let your animals forage the agave fields to fertilize, aerating agave. boost pup production. increase stress for variegation. spend less on feed.
Thursday May 22, 2025
Thursday May 22, 2025
This podcast is a conversation I had with Keirstyn Amponsah, who is researching Dryfarming/Sustainable Farming Practices with Purdue. She had some great questions & this convo has alot of cool knowledge i think will help you podcast listeners. New podcast coming soon on agave. Enjoy!
Monday May 05, 2025
Monday May 05, 2025
In this podcast I am having a talk with Adrian from Planet Mezcal for a 2nd time. We go into Agave hybrids, California Agave farming, California AB 2606, & of course what i do on my farm as well here in California. It was a fun talk and the live video is available on instagram on my profile @ farmingandgardeningcalifornia .
Feel free to leave comments or suggestions for later episodes. I will get to uploading some podcasts soon, been real busy shipping plants. Anyways, enjoy!
Monday Apr 07, 2025
Monday Apr 07, 2025
Here is a talk i did with the ladies from Amigas y Mezcal. They were kind enough to invite me on their show and i was more then willing. They had excellent questions and I wanted to put this in audio form because it had alot of great information. It was a great episode, give it a listen. If you want to skip to that podcast, skip to 13:50. Have a good one everyone. Have a backlog of podcasts i will begin uploading, while ive been away from uploading episodes, I have not stopped making them, I just been busy so I haven't had time to upload. Have a great day everyone.