Monday, July 1, 2013

Can You Guess What We've Been Doing?


We've been picking mulberries. Our hands looked worse than this by the time we finished later in the day. Luckily, hands wash and mulberry stains bleach out rather quickly.

 After having no mulberries last year due to a late frost, there is an overabundance of them this year. And they are huge!

The kids wanted to pick them. I had  little interest in doing it this year, but love watching them enjoy nature, so I gave in. We headed out early to the largest, oldest tree on the property. In quick order, we had almost four pounds of mulberries. We boarded the Ranger and drove around to look at the other trees.


 As we drove back by the first tree, I realized you couldn't even tell we'd been there. We only pick what we can reach from the ground so the birds can have the rest and we don't have to climb any trees. Stepping back and looking at the huge, old tree there were so many berries left.

Another thing we found while we were out were two mulberry trees that weren't turning purple. The berries on these trees were all white with a very slight blush to some of them. There were berries on the ground so I thought they might be a different variety. I picked a blushing berry and tasted it. It had a slight sweetness, but nothing close to as sweet as the purple and absolutely no flavor. The birds can definitely have this tree!

 After researching, I think they're called white mulberry trees. Supposedly the leaves and fruit are good for many medicinal purposes. The birds can still have them. I'll keep my premature graying hair, joint aches and pains, ringing ears and dizziness, and high cholesterol if it means not having to eat those again. (Actually, I don't have most of those problems or I may think differently. Probably not, but maybe.)

We ended up with over 9 pounds of berries in very little time!



I washed them and put them in my steam juicer. I ended up with over nine cups of pure juice. I gave the mash left over to the chickens. I froze the juice to use later when I have more time to make jelly.



4 comments:

  1. Love love love mulberries! White and black and so good in jams and jellies! we finally planted one tree last year but it will take another 3 years before it fruits - can't wait!

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    1. We have so many trees around here that I can't even count them all. We only picked from a couple of them. If you lived anywhere close, you could have as many as you wanted. :)

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  2. I know this is a super old entry, but if you take some mulberry leaves from the tree, crush them a bit, and rub them on your hands they take the stains out.

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    1. Sorry it took so long to reply. I was having trouble getting things to work. Anyway, I will give your tip a try next spring!

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