North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Louisa Rogoff Thompson <louisathompson@erols.com>]

Martha,

I assume you are talking about the most common mulberry, the one with 
multi-lobed leaves, which is Morus alba despite the fact that the fruit 
are black. 

I love to eat mulberries fresh and have had good luck freezing them.  
They are always ripe or overripe by the time they hit the ground, so 
keeping them clean is the tricky part, because if you try to rinse them 
they fall apart.  I use a plastic tablecloth on the ground under the 
tree to collect them.  Freeze as is.  Great over vanilla ice cream.

I disagree about the mess, though, because every fruit-eating bird 
around will eat some and drop purple poop on your deck, sidewalk, car, 
etc.  Also, you will get the same purple dye on your shoes and track it 
into the house unless you remember to take your shoes off.

I must also point out that white mulberry is extremely invasive and also 
extremely hard to kill, so be sure you want it before you plant it.  If 
you are near a natural area that is not already invaded by mulberry, 
please consider not planting it, because, as I said, it is very invasive 
and will eventually displace native trees.  You can usually find a 
friend or neighbor who will let you harvest their mulberries, or a place 
where they grow wild.

A root fungus carried by white mulberry (without symptoms) infects and 
kills the native red mulberry (Morus rubra).  In my area (near 
Baltimore, MD) there are almost no red mulberries left.

Louisa Thompson
Zone 7

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> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 12:38:25 -0500
> From: Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>
> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] preserving mulberries
> To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.0.20050821123418.01e8f920@mail.murraystate.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
> At 12:31 PM 8/21/2005, you wrote:
>  
>
> > What experiences have people had with preserving mulberries? I am considering
> > planting one, but they are large trees with lots of fruit that could become a
> > nuisance if I don't have good things to do with them.
> >    
> Martha, unless it's planted in a spot where it overhangs your patio or 
> sidewalk, the dropping fruit are not a problem.  They sift down into the 
> grass - and, at least here, it's hot summertime when they're ripening, and 
> any that do drop usually dessicate fairly rapidly, or are consumed by the 
> insects.
>
> I've made mulberry pie - very tasty, though I suspect some of my friends 
> here at work would be put off by the presence of the stems, but even when 
> I'm eating straight off of the tree, I eat them stem and all, and there's 
> no way I'd spend the time removing the stem from each berry.
>
> I've got a couple of gallons of mulberries in the freezer right now.  Have 
> considered pulling out a bag of them and trying them in the dehydrator.
>
> Lucky.
>
>
>  
>
>