I believe the red mulberries are edible and the white is not. Found a small mulberry the other day but it is tight against a spruce that I dont think I can dig it out. We have black cap raspberries here. They are just past flowered out and berries forming. They should be ready around the fourth of July week. We also have some Blackberry canes, but in two years they have not produced. Not even blossoms.
We have many Mulberry tree's around my place. I recommend them for sure! Prepare for stained hands.....
The whites are edible too...I actually prefer them I think...all mulberries are kind of a mild flavor...
You might be surprised...even if you have to "work it over" to get it out of there...they're pretty tough (weed tree really) and will probably survive...
I looked at it closer today and it was cut back in the past. There is a small 1" "stump" and the new growth has grown out of it. It is pretty set. I thought it was just a new sapling easily dug. I'll keep looking around and I may luck out with another one.
Are those the same as elderberries? There’s something around here that I think are elderberry and look pretty similar to the picture
No I don't think they are. We have elderberries around here but they are red and I don't think people harvest them. The bushes are quite different from each other. A lot of the salal branches are harvested for floral bouquets as they really stand up to travel.
We have Autumn Olives here. They are invasive, and pretty. They're bushes with leaves dark green on top, silvery on bottom, smooth oval with pointed ends. They grow to 10 feet tall, and produce hundreds of pea-sized red berries with tiny yellow speckles and a wee little pit. The berries are astringent (make you pucker) till after a frost, then mellow out. The birds eat the berries and spread them like wild fire. They grow well in poor soil. The berries make an awesome jam, and have lotsa pectin, and lycopene (found in tomatoes i think, and very good for the prostate gland). I think steaming or blanching them, and then milling with a Foley food mill was the key. Because of the pits, not sure they're good for much "off the shelf". Because they are tiny, it takes a while, perhaps with multiple people to pick an appreciable amount. On a healthy plant, the berries tend to cluster. Sca
I was out along the tree line on the neighbors side looking at an autumn olive to remove and chip. There are a lot of bittersweet vines and other brush to remove next to it. Wouldn't you know it, I found two mulberry trees loaded with berries. I'll get them opened up and see how it goes. The neighbors are great about letting me maintain the tree line. Also found some more black cap raspberries that did not produce last year.
Thought I read that white was sweetest of them all and make for great jams. I have a white mulberry out back, always tried to pick them to try making a jam but the birds and squirrels always beat me to it. Apparently they won't ripen off the tree.
I just went out for the first time picking black cherries. Maybe about a pound here so far. I think I’ll need more if I’m going to make jelly, but I probably have enough here to cook down and make a little syrup with.
More or less winging it tonight. I ended up picking a lot more, so now I’m trying to make jelly using the same process as when I make wild grape jelly.
Small batch for now. You can see in the bowl I’ve got a ton more cherries to work with. Hopefully this 1/2 jar sets up overnight and I can try some on toast in the morning. From the taste of the spoon I used to stir the concoction, this stuff tastes pretty good
It was very tedious and time consuming. I would grab a handful, squeeze the pits out over a large saucepan, drop the skin/juice/fruit into the pan, and toss the pits into a bowl (I’d like to try planting some in the spring) After about 45 minutes I had enough of that. Some recipes I see people just tossing them into the cooking pot whole, but knowing the pits contain cyanide I was more than a little leery...
