Mulberries

My Black Beauty mulberry has been fruiting for over a month now and they are so good I am inspired to write a few words about them. The Mulberry is another of my favorite plants, a small to moderate sized tree that reliably produces tasty berries every year. It is also vigorous, drought tolerant and fairly pest free (at least in my garden it is). Its’ dense foliage makes it a great shade tree, though the fallen fruit is so messy that the less useful fruitless varieties are usually used for this. Unlike most fruit trees the Mulberry can be propagated vegetatively from cuttings, which is a nice feature.

A Greek taverna shaded by carefully trained mulberry trees

The fruit of the mulberry looks a lot like a blackberry, though it differs in being composed of multiple fruit made up of many flowers rather than just one. They ripen in mid to late summer, though there is a big difference between a fairly ripe (sour and firm) and a fully ripe (sweet and mushy) fruit. A fully ripe berry is so squishy and juicy it will often disintegrate in your hand if you pull too hard while it is still attached. When this happens the bloody purple red juice will quickly stain your hands and run down your arms (if this happens a few times you will soon start to look like you have been butchering a cow!) In view of this it isn’t surprising that they are increasingly being used as a source of natural food coloring.

Dried mulberries are a staple food in Afghanistan and have a chewy/crunchy texture somewhat reminiscent (a bit) of dried figs. The sweet dried fruit may contain up to 70% sugar, as well as protein and iron and are widely used as a travelling food there. I found an interesting recipe for an ‘Afghan power bar” at this site http://www.afghancooking.net/afghan-cooking-unveiled/2010/01/afghan-power-bars-.html It is worth trying if you have enough of the fruit.

Mulberries are one of the all time favorite fruits of birds (probably even more than blueberries and cherries) and if you are to get any fruit at all you will probably have to net the tree. If you don’t use a net the berries will be gone within a few days of approaching ripeness. On the other hand if you do net it they have a long bearing season and will stay on the tree for weeks, slowly getting sweeter. The ripe berries don’t fall from the tree and if you just leave them they have the endearing habit of drying themselves and just hanging there.  and dry out almost completely (even then they will hang on the tree for a while). If you clear the ground underneath the tree and lay down a sheet you can gather the ripe fruit by shaking the tree until they fall. I only found all of this out when I netted my tree (in previous years the fruit got eaten by birds as soon as it was ripe enough).

This is what your hand looks like after gathering a half dozen ripe berries