Cactus problems

[KenK]

I live in the southwest desert and am having a cactus problem.

I have a very large 9 - 10 foot cactus in my yard - prickly pear I think it is, the one with the rosy red large edible buds - which lost about half the plant through a breakoff.

Anyway, I'm slowly cleaning up the corpse. This variety of cactus has very fine thorns, like fur, but very very irritating. I hate to use good fabric gloves to handle the pieces for fear the thorns will probably imbed themselves and make the gloves unusable for anything else. True? I think the thorns will go right through latex gloves. Any convenient way to handle the large pieces other than piercing and moving them with a big knife or screwdriver? Not very convenient.

Next question - a way to get the thorns out of my skin? They are so small they are almost invisible to my aging eyes to get out with tweezers.

TIA

[chaniarts]

chop the pieces up with a shovel, and then you can pick them up with large kitchen tongs or even the shovel.

i use clear packing tape to remove the small thorns. duct tape would also work, but also pull out any hairs on your skin too.

[KenK]

chaniarts wrote in news:kqkebb$st0$ [e-mail]:

Both sound like excellent suggestions! Never thought of cutting up the cactus or using tape. Brilliant!

[NamPhong]

Several sections of newspaper folded together and thoroughly wet will protect you from this type of cactus. Just cut into sections that you can move and grab it with the folded/wet newspaper. You can also stick the ears back in the ground and grow new cacti.

[gfretwell]

We have a lot of people here in florida who planted those little cactus you get in a jar and now they are over the house. They just go nuts here. Sun and water If you don't have a machine to get rid of them people break them up with chains behind the truck and use a pitch fork to handle the stuff that breaks off. The "hort" pickup guys hate them.

[Stormin Mormon]

First, I'm a back easter, and really have no clue.

I have a very large 9 - 10 foot cactus in my yard - prickly pear I think it is, the one with the rosy red large edible buds - which lost about half the plant through a breakoff.

Anyway, I'm slowly cleaning up the corpse. This variety of cactus has very fine thorns, like fur, but very very irritating. I hate to use good fabric gloves to handle the pieces for fear the thorns will probably imbed themselves and make the gloves unusable for anything else. True? I think

the thorns will go right through latex gloves. Any convenient way to handle the large pieces other than piercing and moving them with a big knife or

screwdriver? Not very convenient.

Next question - a way to get the thorns out of my skin? They are so small they are almost invisible to my aging eyes to get out with tweezers.

TIA

[shellyf_DELETE_]

Search for COWHIDE LEATHER PALM GLOVES HEAVY DUTY. Home Depot, Lowes, ebay, Amazon: they all have them, these are what I use!!! Or, as one individual suggested, bbq tongs.

[Higgs Boson]

He wants to know how to get thorns out of his skin. They can be hard to see. Could you ask a friend or neighbor to weld the tweezers?

You might also try over in .

Good luck.

HB

[gonjah]

We got rid of ours with long handle lopping shears and a pitch fork. We put the cactus in heavy duty boxes, threw some in the trash, and gave some to a friend. Good riddance. The prickly pear was almost as tall as our house. Pretty but a bitch to keep maintained.