Growing prickly pear cacti from store bought fruits! #timelapse

Did you know a supermarket prickly pear is full of seeds that grow into actual cacti? Let me show you. I picked a few out, rinsed the pulp off and left them dry. Any pulp left on a seed invites mold later. Then, onto mostly coarse sand with a little potting soil, pressed onto the surface, not buried, cacti seeds want light and warmth to germinate. So I kept the tray around 20 degrees and misted whenever the top dried out. Prickly pear seeds are slow and uneven, some sprout in two weeks, others take months, day 26, the first seedlings push up, still wearing the seed coat like a tiny helmet, and they look nothing like a cactus. Two fat, fleshy leaves, more like a succulent, but look between them, little tuffs of spines. Those are aerials, and that's what actually makes a cactus a cactus. By day 66, the real body pushes up between them and those first leaves shrivel away. From here, it's light, warmth, and patience. Water only once the mix is bone dry. More seedlings drown than dry out. Day 132. A whole field of prickly pairs from one supermarket fruit. Next time you eat a prickly pair, keep the seeds, and now tell me, what should I grow next?