Day of the Cactus

Yesterday afternoon the cactus police stopped by again. Last time they were here they pronounced my cactus healthy and said I could keep them. This time was a different story. Upon close inspection, they found this:

Yup, the dreaded Nopal cactus worm. I was devasted that my plants were infected and would now have to go. One in particular because the valiant guy has survived three hurricanes and continued to grow with vigor. I had no choice but to cooperate and they scheduled to come back today at 10:00am to cut them down. I thought it was nice of them to ask me what time was convenient for me. I never expected them to be here at 10:00am though. Good thing I was ready for them because they pulled up promptly at 9:45am!

Here's what the garden looked like this morning.

They hauled out their machetes and some special tools that they had for handling cactus and set to work. They were very efficient, polite and very knowledgeable about cactus in general.

Here's the garden after they finished.

They removed every single little piece of Nopal, as well as any litter they found. They also weeded the entire bed! After all that, they replanted the agave that I had around and made the garden look as good as possible. I was really impressed with these guys.

Here's the crew, set to leave with my ex-garden stacked high in the back of their truck.