North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Melissa Kacalanos <mijwiz@yahoo.com>]

Hi all. I just joined this list. I'll be moving to a
house with a much larger yard this year, so I'll
finally be able to plant the fruit trees I've always
wanted. I'd like to continue to garden organically, so
I'm looking for the most trouble-free fruit.

I read all this mulberry information with interest. As
a child, I ate the mulberries that naturalized all
over NYC, but as an adult, I find them bland. I now
suspect that these were all of the White Mulberry
species, (whatever color the berries happened to be)
and this species is not known for flavor. It would be
nice to grow a tastier variety, since they certainly
are easy. The Black Mulberry species sounds good, but
I'm in zone 5, so I guess it's not hardy here.

'Illinois Everbearing' is an interspecific cross
between White Mulberry and Red Mulberry, the native
American species. If this cross is tasty, it makes me
wonder how the pure Red Mulberry would taste,
undiluted by the bland White Mulberry. Is anyone
growing that?

On the topic of apple pests that are being discussed
here: I read somewhere about a novel solution to apple
pests in organic orchards: pigs. Apparently, a lot of
apple pests infest young fruit, causing them to drop
off the trees, and then the young insects mature in
the fallen fruit, fly out, and return to the trees to
do another generation's worth of damage. Removing
every last immature fallen fruit would stop this
cycle, but that's hard to do. So, one enterprising
organic orchardist pastured his pigs in his apple
orchard. They ate every last fallen fruit, and reduced
insect damage by a lot each year. This doesn't even
count as an expense (except for the fence to keep them
in I suppose) as he also sold the pork. This isn't
something I would want to do in a home garden, but
it's something for farmers to consider.

Melissa


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