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.

Ripe Mulberries

The mulberries are ripening on the 2 mulberry trees that were on our property when we moved in a few years ago.  I believe they are morus rubra.

We have a flock of cedar waxwings that have taken up residence in the trees and are going to town.

These particular mulberries have a fairly flat taste.  Our children like the sweet flavor, but I am ambivalent toward them.  With any luck, we will try to pick a few quarts for making preserves.

These are really big trees, so picking the fruit is not particularly easy.  We'll have to bring a ladder out.  I am also thinking of attaching a rope ladder to the bottom branch so the children can climb into the tree and do the picking.

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 this Spring.  They are planted on stocky, low grafted rootstock and should grow in bush form for easier picking. 

 

First Fruit of 2011

In this photograph, you can see some of our Seascape strawberries bordering a bed of our blueberries.  If you look very carefully, you can see them blooming.

Even better, this weekend, I noticed that our Eversweet strawberries were doing much more than just blooming, as can be seen in the following photograph.

 

Tonight, I was pleasantly surprised to find our first ripe Eversweet strawberries of the year.  In fact, our first fruit of the year.

Also, our 4 in 1 pluot is covered with small, immature fruit; however, these will take another two months mature.

Our peach trees have also been filled with blooms this year as you can see from the following photograph.  If I can only protect them from the bugs, squirrels, and possums, we should hopefully have a banner harvest later this summer.  The second photograph is interesting in that you can see how the spent flower bud forms into an immature fruit.

 

In the past, our mulberry tree has been the first fruit to ripen.  The mulberry tree was here when we moved into our current house, so I am not entirely sure what kind of mulberry it is.  However, I am fairly certain that it is a morus rubra.  From the following two photographs, you can see the size of the tree along with a close-up of the immature fruit.  I would expect the fruit to begin ripening in about two weeks.  Then, the tree will be inundated with cedar waxwings who will remain until all of the fruit is devoured.  Our children enjoy the fruit, but I find it to be rather plain, albeit sweet.  I may try to make some preserves out of them and see how they turn out.  The fruit of morus rubra have a reputation for being "insipid"; a description which I would generally agree with, although it is somewhat unfairly harsh.  In contrast, morus nigra is reputed to have outstanding taste.  To test that reputation, I planted four bush type morus nigra - Black Persian Mulberries.