Dallas Fruit and Vegetable Grower

Ripe Mulberries in Texas

 

Our mulberry trees have been fruiting for the last 8 weeks.   They are just now finishing up.  

The amount of fruit that comes off these trees is staggering.  The photograph above shows all of the fruit in varying stages of ripeness.  The fruit are difficult to see.

The photograph below is a close-up of the tree branch in the left quarter of the photograph above. You can see the fruit more clearly in it.  At an early stage, the fruit is white.  Then the fruit turns red and is sour.  When fully ripe, the fruit turns a deep blue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Experts often advise to never plant a mulberry tree near a patio, pool or sidewalk because they are messy.  Those experts are correct.  The trees drop a ton of ripe fruit.  One of our two trees is over the vegetable garden which has decomposed granite paths.  You can see the large number of fruit that had dropped on the pathways in the photograph below.

When the fruit are dropping, we have to check our shoes before walking inside the house because the juice can stain if you walk on the rugs with these on the bottom of your shoes. 

 

 

I am amazed that any of the fruit actually makes it to the ground.  The reason for my amazement is because of the huge flocks of birds that sit all day long in the mulberries gorging themselves on the fruit.  In particular, we have a large flock of cedar waxwings that migrate to our yard each January - February to feast upon the privet berries in late Winter and then move on to the mulberries.  Thes mulberry trees provide nourishment over an extended period of approximately two months or more.

You can see some of the cedar waxwings in the photograph below, if you look closely.

 

 

 

Here is another close-up of that same photograph.

 

 

 

The photograph below shows one of the full sized trees in early, early Spring before the tree has leafed out.   As the season progresses, the trees become very lush. 

 

 

 

These trees were on the property when we moved in.   I suspect that they are morus rubra.  I have been somewhat critical of the taste of the fruit when fully ripened, describing it as being "insipid."  I think, though, that I have been too quick to judgment.  The criticism of the fruit is that it is very, very sweet but loses  its acidity and excitement when ripe.  However, this year, I thought the fruit tasted particularly excellent when eaten straight off the tree.   I think, personally, I prefer the fruit before it is fully ripened, when it still has just a slight  touch of red and, therefore, a bit of acidity.  When I eat it this way, it has a great deal more robustness, and I like it quite a lot.  Furthermore, I think mulberries are just much better eaten straight off the tree as you walk through the garden. Collected in bulk and refrigerated for later eating, it just seems to lose some of the flavor for fresh eating.

Black mulberries - morus nigra - have a much better reputation in terms of taste.  Consequently, I planted four Black Beauty morus nigra mulberries from Burnt Ridge Nursery last year.  They are planted on stocky, low grafted rootstock and should grow in bush form for easier picking.   They are still immature and did not fruit this Spring.  I am looking forward to fruit from them next year.

Cool video on pollinators

I just watched this pretty cool video on pollinators that "konrad_far_north" posted on the GardenWeb Fruit and Orchards Forum.  It is worth watching.

 

  

American Robin and Blackberries

©iStockphoto.com

Growing up in Missouri, I remember the American Robin being one of the most prevalent birds in suburban neighborhood.  When I moved to Texas, I rarely would see a robin.   In our prior Dallas neighborhood, we would occasionally see a couple of robins when walking the neighborhood.  Only one year did we actually have a pair of robins in our own yard.

Similarly, in our new neighborhood, I occasionally see a pair of robins hopping around a neighbor's yard searching for worms, but it has not been a common sight.   That changed this year as our blackberries started to ripen this summer.   Once the berries ripened, we had four robins take up residence in our front yard, and they appear to be enjoying our blackberries immensely.  

Consequently, our blackberry harvest has been noticeably smaller this year.  Although we still have harvested a lot of blackberries, it has not been as big as last year.  In reality, the decreased harvest may have something to do with how dry and hot it has been.  Despite my additional watering, the berries just don't seem to be filling out as much as last year.  However, I also think that the robins may be getting to a lot of the ripe fruit.

Last year, the mockingbirds were giving me a hard time with the blueberries but did not touch the blackberries.  This year, in contrast, we had a nice harvest of blueberries, but the robins have been putting a dent in the blackberries.

We won't let it bother us because we enjoy having the robins in the yard.  We just won't have very much blackberry cobbler and preserves.

Eastern Screech Owl Returns to Lay Second Clutch of Eggs

This red Eastern Screech Owl showed up in our owl house at the beginning of February - much earlier than ever before in years past.  A grey male also showed up, and by late March, we had a juvenile grey owlet, too.  I posted a photo of the owlet earlier this year.

Needless to say, we were surprised to see the red owl roosting again in the owl house earlier last week in April.  This is a photo of the owl in February, but I am almost certain that it is the same owl.  Given how she has taken up residence again, I am almost certain that she has laid a second clutch of eggs.  In fact, last night, I heard some owlets chirping inside the house.

I don't know if this is unusual or not, but I have never seen it happen in the four or five years that we have had this owl house.

This should really help our local population of screech owls thrive, I would think.

Eastern Screech Owl Baby

For about three weeks, we had not seen any trace of the owl that had taken up residence in our owl house.  I suspected that its eggs had hatched but had no evidence of it.

In the past when there were owlets in the house, they would often poke their heads out during the day or I could lure them out with my closest approximation to the call of an eastern screech owl.  However, this year, we had not seen a thing . . . until just this week.

This little guy popped out during the day, and we were able to take this shot.  Surprisingly, he is pretty mature.  He looks to be about three or four weeks old to me.  I cannot believe that we completely missed seeing him when he was younger with baby fuzz feathers.

I know this must be the baby, because the mother had reddish brown feathers as you can see from this older photograph from earlier in the year:

In the two previous years, we had twins in each year.  This year, it appears that only one owlet hatched and survived.  To see a photograph of last year's owlets taken at a much younger age, proceed to this link.

 

 

Orchard photographs from Edmonton, Canada

Take a moment to go to the following post to see some great photographs from an orchard in Edmonton, Canada - Orchard photos.

There are about 20 to 30 beautiful photos of this apple orchard in various seasons of the year.  There are also some very nice photographs of cedar waxwings, deer, and coyotes in the orchard.  Make sure you scroll all the way through the posting so you don't miss any of them.

Inventory the Birds in Your Backyard

Marianne Green of the Dallas Morning News had a nice article in Thursday's paper about this weekend's Great Backyard Bird Count.

The Cornell Lab on Ornithology is conducting a nationwide headcount on birds.

Log onto the Great Backyard Bird Count website to enter the birds that you can see in your backyard.

Their instruction page is here.

The photo above is off a flock of cedar waxwings that arrived in our neighborhood about three weeks ago to eat the privet and holly berries.  In another month, they will be start working on our mulberries.

Return of our Eastern Screech Owl

I mentioned the other day in this Post that I had been surprised to see an Eastern Screech Owl taking up residence in our owl house this early in the year.

I was actually able to get a photograph of it on Friday in the snow at dusk.

Here are some interesting facts about them from Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

Red and gray individuals occur across the range of the Eastern Screech-Owl, with about one-third of all individuals being red. Rufous owls are more common in the East, with fewer than 15% red at the western edge of the range. No red owls are known from southern Texas, although they occur further north in Texas and further south in Mexico. Intermediate brownish individuals also occur in most populations.

The Eastern Screech-Owl eats a variety of small animals. Two captive males ate from one-quarter to one-third of their own body weight in food each night, but sometimes skipped a night and stored food instead.

The trilling song on one pitch, sometimes known as the Bounce Song, is used by members of a pair or a family to keep in contact. The male will trill to advertise a nest site, court the female, and when arriving at a nest with food. The descending Whinny is used in territory defense. The songs usually are uttered separately, but sometimes are heard together.

Eastern Screech-Owl pairs usually are monogamous and remain together for life. Some males, however, will mate with two different females. The second female may evict the first female, lay her own eggs in the nest, and incubate both clutches.

They eat insects, crayfish, earthworms, songbirds, snakes and rodents.

Clutches of 2 to 6 eggs.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Screech-Owl/lifehistory#description

This year's owl has red coloring and appears to be different from last year's owl which had gray feathers, as can be seen in the next photograph from last year.  I wonder if it is one of the babies from last year or completely new to the area.

Is It Spring Yet?

Is it Springtime yet?  Not quite, but during this past weekend of January 29th, we had temperatures of 76 degrees, and it felt like Spring.  I wonder if the birds and plants felt the same way.

What inspired me to write this post was the surprise that greeted me this morning when I took our dog out into the backyard.  From a distance, I caught a glimpse of something gray in the entrance to our owl house.   At first, I thought that it must be a squirrel investigating the owl house because it was much too early for the birds to start nesting.   But as I slowly walked toward the owl house, it became surprisingly clear that there was an Eastern Screech Owl inside the house.  As a crept forward to get an even closer look, the owl ducked down and away from the entrance so that I could no longer see it.  (The photograph above is from last year.)

I don't know what to make of this early visit.  As I mentioned earlier, it seems much to early to start nesting.  We have had Eastern Screech Owls take up residence each of the last four years to have their owlets.  However, each time, the mother owl did not appear and begin nesting until late in March or April.  Given that we are still in January, I wonder if she was confused by the 75 degree temperatures over the previous weekend.  If so, the current forecast of low temperatures this week in the teens should dispel that confusion.  I'll be watching for the next few days to see if she sticks around.

We now have Eastern Screech Owls flying around our yard at night all year long.  Just the other morning, I woke up particularly early and took our dog outside while it was still dark.  As I stood out in the yard, a huge shadow glided silently overhead from one tree to another.  It was a big silhouette that I knew could only be one of our owls.  Often times, in the early evening, I will hear the trilling whistle of a screech owl that lets me know they are still around.  And every once in a while when I work outside at dusk, an owl will float by to perch in a tree or on a fence top to keep an eye on me.

They are such fascinating and majestic animals.  I cannot encourage you enough to put up an owl house of your own.

Eastern Screech Owlets

Here is a photograph of the two owlets that hatched in the last few weeks.  I have been hearing them at night for the last few weeks, but this is the first time that I have caught them sticking their faces out of the house.  By whistling an eastern screech owl hoot (which is pretty easy to do), I was able to encourage them to stick their heads out for a photograph.

With a little patience, I also was able to take the following photograph of the mother or father feeding the owlets.  If you look closely, you can see that the adult bird is feeding what appears to be a snake to the young owlets.