It's hard to understand
why a book, or even an essay hasn’t been written about the mulberry, which
is a sentimental fruit, the fruit of youth or lost youth to so many. The
first food ever gathered with love, and should be mentioned here - if only
for that reason - in memory of every child who climbed and picked this
tenacious tree everywhere from country meadows to littered lots in the
most polluted cities.
Who doesn’t remember a gnarled, crooked mulberry tree of days past, a
child with purple stained fingers, lips, and teeth cramming sweet fruits
into his mouth as fast as he can pick a fistful? And the stained white
shirt afterward (no other color shirt was appropriate for mulberry
picking)? What other tree belongs to everybody? Unwanted, unheralded,
uncultivated in America, the tree of birds and chicken and hogs and boys
and girls, whose leaves won’t come out until spring is a certainty and die
with the slightest breath of frost, the tree of youth, which like the idea
of youth seems to hang on with a tenacity cultivated trees have had bred
out of them, an escape springing up from seed dropped by birds in the most
unlikely places and defeating every attempt by "experts" to eradicate it.
No one would suspect that these orphan survivors in the wild, these "dirty
trees," as the experts call them that stain clothing and discolor the
concrete with which we are paving the planet - are among the most
aristocratic of trees. Through the ages, and even today, the mulberry has
been valued for its leaves (used in silk culture), for its inner bark
(used to make vellum paper), and for the wild juiciness of its fruit (far
from always being "flat and insipid," as the experts say). It also sees
service as a windbreak, as a shade tree, as an ornamental (especially in
varieties like the weeping mulberry), and the related "paper mulberry" (Broussonetia
papyrifera) is cultivated exclusively for paper in Asia. The mulberry is
even valuable as a decoy in the war fruit growers have been waging for
centuries against birds.
Though it isn’t grown commercially in America anymore, no tree has a
longer history of cultivation than the mulberry. In his L'origins des
plantes cultives, a work painstakingly compiled from ancient writings and
archeological evidences, Alphonse de Candolle wrote that mulberries were
one of the 27 crop plants cultivated in the Old World (Europe, Africa, and
Asia) more than four thousand years ago - strawberries and raspberries
having been raised only half as long by people kind.
The Best Mulberry
Varieties To Grow
The mulberry genus, Morus, belongs to the same family as the fig,
breadfruit, and rubber trees, not to mention Cannabis sativa, the plant
from which marijuana is obtained, and the genus Humulus, from which the
hops used for making beer are obtained. There are about twelve species of
the Morus genus, but only five or so are planted for their fruit, many
varieties are ever-bearing-stretching their fruiting over the entire
summer - while others ripen early and still others relatively late in
summer. Nurserymen can recommend varieties suited to your area and
ripening times, so that you can pick mulberries over a four or five month
period. Some of the better ones are King, Downing, Wellington, Black
English, Russian, Thorbum, Troubridge, Shaheni Red, Everbearing, Hicks,
New American, Bideneh Seedless White, and Black Persian (especially good
for the West Coast and southern regions). All should bear a year or two
after planting.
When, Where, And
How To Plant
Mulberry trees ordered barefoot from a nursery or propagated from the wild
are best planted in early spring … when the ground begins to warm up. The
trees should be set about 30 feet apart. They prefer a rich, loamy soil
that is somewhat moist, but they are not at all finicky and will grow
almost anywhere, even in sandy soil. In cold or very wet areas, mulberry
fruits tend to drop off the tree before fully ripening, however, and trees
grown in cultivated ground bear better than those planted on a lawn.
Needless to say, full sun will ensure more and better fruit, yet all
varieties will produce berries in fairly deep shade as well. In other
words, you can just plant a mulberry tree and forget about it - it will
usually make it on its own - but for the best crops of berries, give the
tree a little care. If the soil is poor where you plant a mulberry, for
example, dig a deep hole and fill it with compost before transplanting. If
the ground is dry, water the tree through the summer until its roots get
established. And if the tree is planted in a cold climate, try to place it
against a wall in the warmest part of the garden.
Space-Saving
Mulberries For The Garden, Patio, And Greenhouse
The ten-foot high Korean mulberry species and other bush-like types are
sometimes planted to save space it the garden that isn’t big enough to
accommodate a standard tree. Almost any variety of mulberry can be trained
into space saving forms. One method is simply to keep a standard tree
small by constant pruning, restricting it to about a three-foot stem and a
small head. A handsome wall tree is another alternative - just train the
mulberry in the shape of a fan against a south wall, keeping the branches
a foot apart and cutting back all side shoots to six leaves in the summer
to form fruiting spurs. Feed wall trees with a weak solution of liquid
manure when they begin to fruit heavily.
The ultimate in space saving mulberries is probably the pot tree, which is
grown in a twelve-inch pot on the patio or in the greenhouse. It can be
simply a bush form or might be trained in a unique pyramid shape. Pot
trees should be cared for like any standard tree, but they do need to be
repotted every year in early spring before growth begins. Keep pot trees
from getting too tall by nipping their leaders when necessary and cut back
the laterals to six leaves in early summer to encourage the production of
fruit bearing spurs. They, too, should be fertilized with a weak
“manure-tea” (manure and water) solution when fruiting heavily.
Assorted Mulberry
Ploys
Birds are so partial to mulberries that many home gardeners and commercial
fruit growers plant a few mulberry trees to act as decoys and distract our
feathered friends from blueberries and strawberries.
Farmers often plant mulberries to satisfy their chickens, which eat their
fill of mulberries and don’t bother other berries as they patrol the
garden for insects.
In the past, farmers who raised pigs planted a mulberry area with oaks, or
planted mulberries between standing oaks, to provide their porkers with
acorns and mulberries, two of their favorite foods.
>>>
Mulberries is Continued on Next Page >>>