How Mulberries Build Resilience in my Food Forest System (& Why They Aren't for Everyone!) 

Yup. I've had drunk chickens and turkeys in my yard from fermenting mulberries. And, those girls knew exactly what they were doing. 😄

Mulberries made a big impression on me in a weird way. I was on a run through a park in Brooklyn and I saw this huge tree covered in probably hundreds of pounds of food and it was delicious and amazingly productive. It got me looking into food forests and eventually permaculture from there. Now I’m in my own home in PA and was shocked to find that this amazing food tree is hard to find. Explanation by most: “too messy.” Oh I’m sorry is all that abundant free food too “messy” for you?! Anyway I found a native landscaping guy and now I have 3 mulberry trees 😊

I had a mulberry tree in the yard when I was younger. And someone commented one time how messy their mulberry tree was. I didn’t have that problem. Then one day I saw my lab snarfing thru the grass eating all the dropped berries. He was a good dog 🐕

Prune them hard. I try to keep my mulberries to 3m tall 10ft. They fruit better if pruned hard and the timber burns fast like pine wood. The fresh leaves steeped in water for a tea are good for the lungs. They are also silk worm food if you want to go into silk production.

The thing I'm wondering about, WRT harvesting, why does it matter if you can't reach, and thus harvest, ALL the fruit? So long as it's planted in a spot where the mess doesn't matter, I say, if I can't reach them, the birds are welcome to them!

I put tarps under my tree just before the fruit ripens. Shake any branches I can reach which usually drops fruit from nearby branches too. Leave the tarps until the fruit is gone. Love making mulberry jam and freezing them to add to smoothies.

Mulberries really take off! I bought a twig sized plant about 5 years ago at a county extension sale, and it's about 10 feet tall. I cut it way back the last two years. Their vigor is no joke! The tree has attracted cat birds and Orioles to our yard. I love the berries, and the wildlife it has attracted. My husband loves the tree so much... we planted a second. More pruning, but more biomass and this one will block out the view of our neighbors. We politely planted it in a place that won't hang over the fence. They wouldn't appreciate berries on their concrete pool deck...

I love my mulberry tree- our turkeys and the deer love them too. The staining is wonderful on my lips! It’s an old tree

As a kid there was an early 20th century farm house across from our grade school with an old woman living there that had a huge mulberry tree that she let us climb and pick all the berries we could eat and more. Wonderful pies were ours filling up baskets and were a mess with mulberry fights

A good problem to have - too much mulberry - you might need a mini-goat to feed those branches too! suggest try mashed purple mulberries in your bread dough. if you rub your stained hands with green/ unripe mulberries, it will come off

Live next to Hanes Park in Winston Salem - found a bunch of these trees that almost NOBODY paid any attention to - literal pounds of fruit get trampled underfoot seasonally. Went out with a friend and returned with a couple kilo's of the stuff - lived off them for a couple days. My favorite berry of all time - thanks for the education!

Picking and processing harvest has always been a dreaded task for me but I'd rather have the problem of excess food than scarce. I remember to say thank-you prayers to Mother Earth and Prime Creator for providing us with abundance and beauty. I also invite neighbors that appreciate home-grown food to come harvest. It's great to share nature's bounty.

Don't forget about the leaves. Cook them like any green, or dry and put away for tea..High protein. When you trim your trees, harvest the leaves.

They were used for silkbug farming in northern Italy, then all cut down for conventional monoculture, you see some survivors as fields hedges. I planted 2 as an omage to the history of Friuli, although one is a southern Italy variety which I thought would survive drought better. They are young and I miss them but I will see them in March when I go for pruning. Thanks for the tips :)

Another very educational video! I have a “dwarf” mulberry or at least that’s how it was labeled, it’s now over 30’ tall. I whack it back every winter and tie down long branches to make it easier to harvest. We did get fruit flies for the first time this year. Our entire family got Covid during mulberry harvest time, because we were all pretty sick we couldn’t harvest the berries so the fruit flies did.

My rabbits love the leaves. I'm planning on planting a hedge of everbearing mulberries to help feed them and cut down on feed costs. I just pollard them down below the fence level.

Unless you enjoy the individual selection and therapeutic time, you could devise catchment systems that would allow the berries to be caught and roll down to a center collection point. Tarp, or mosquito netting or any mesh smaller than the berry diameter, attach to the lower branches out away from the trunk and have them slope down to the trunk, or to a fixed ring out a couple of feet around the trunk. If you can’t collect one night, you can either retrieve the windfalls from the lower point or toss them to the critters the next morning and let the net catch the fresh ones. You can use a long tool handle or even a 20ft or less piece of pvc to agitate the branches and encourage them to drop all that are ready while you are there.

I would very much like to see the pruning process you use for your mulberries. (Even if its just you talking about it while drawing a little sketch) ❤

The one thing you forgot to mention is that you can pick the leaves, dehydrate and powder. Tea or encapsulated Mulberry leaf helps lower blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetics. I am not a Dr but I grow this for my hubs who is diabetic and has trouble keeping his blood sugars in control. We both take it daily. Also, white mulberry makes great tree hay for larger livestock as an easily grown alternative to hay.

More and more, I've noticed that fruits growers in the USA do not, or cannot climb trees. I climbed every mulberry trees that i came across in parks and forests when its summer time in New York. I've been actively seeking out these wonderful fruits since i discovered them in 2009. Coming from the Caribbean, no tall trees has ever prevented me from getting the fruits that i desire. I really love mulberries, they are to me the best thing about summertime in New York, and people don't usually eat them anyway, so i have them all to myself.

Planted one this year. I have lots of room and I planned for a large size. I hope it can thrive in my zone 5b and high wind location

My large yard tortoise loves mulberries..........mouth is always purple this time of year.

Curious how most of you clean the berries - I have always seen tiny white bugs in the berries that you can't see unless you look really close. So I soak them in apple cider vinegar and salt water for about 10-15 minutes and lift them out of the water (vs draining, so that the gunk stays in the sink and not washed back over the berries). Seems they keep better in the fridge that way too.

Thank you Angela!! 😊 I'm excited about adding Mulberries to my system as well.

I’ve got 33 acres , so room is no problems. I have planted about 10 in our permaculture set up. I’ve decided to prune hard tomorrow. I will create a bowl shape Mulberry tree rather than a centre leader. Try to keep growth a bit lower.

I live in the same city and omg I appreciate this.

Angela : you are a GOD send for education to me. Thank You.

I make mulberry jam every year. I love eating them fresh off the tree but look out for young stink bugs. (They don’t taste good)😂 I put a sheet on the ground and shake the branches to harvest.

We had a mulberry, at one time. I slipped on the fruit, while mowing, and almost went under. That was the end of that. Nearby, we had a tree at the elementary school where I would go pick. I love free food! (Except when i mow.)

love the way you think. Please keep mulberry content coming!!! How to get more fruit, show us coppicing, etc.

Love this thank you for sharing your insights ! My mom, myself, and my partner all have the best childhood memories surrounding around mulberry trees :) I purchased one last year, and we found one on a hike with my son so now he’s very excited about them.

great for adding to compost or mulch excellent bulk

I planted mine beside my children pen. I get some, they get some. Win! Win!

I have a 2 year old mulberry I’m going to pollard next spring. Thanks for the good advice about keeping it for livestock feed!

Recently purchased a new 3 acre property with a strange tree on it. Young friend comes to visit and wigs out of this 40ft diameter mulberry tree. I've fallen in love with it. I've discovered that they are amongst the highest antioxidant berries we can grow. Messy, but the Canadian geese clean up the goo. Thank you for clearing up a question I had regarding chickens eating the fallen fruit. My tree hangs into a fenced orchard, where I plan on growing chickens😊

[Looks up at mulberry tree.] [And Up] [AND UP] *Every* year, huh? That explains a lot. Off to look up pollarding now.

I have many Mulberry trees on our property. I Pollard them too! I have them on a 3 year cycle. Chickens can eat the leaves too!

Plant it down the back of a property so you can make sure your kids change out of their school clothes before visiting it every afternoon, and you've got after school snacks sorted for the duration of its fruiting. A harvest that extends over weeks or months is a positive if you use it right.

That abundance is going to turn into a great blessing one day.

I just bought some dwarfs. Wish me luck

Nice thoughts. Thanks.

“Here we go round the mulberry bush, The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush. Here we go round the mulberry bush so early in the morning…”

have a few trees. last year we had hardly any fruit in our mouths due to the birds eating almost every single one!!! just as an add. the birds poop also turns purple when they eat them.... They are amazing, the leaves have medicinal qualities, are edible as spinach type leaves, and also handy for silk worms and guinea pigs

My dad grew raspberries in Idaho, but if I plant them in viginia, they just become huge thorny weeds. I have blueberries, but the birds eat them all. There is a mulberry in neighbors yard and the branches go about 50 feet I to my yard. I eat a few and the rest just fall and the birds eat some. Mulberries are great.

Lol love a little "after-dinner cocktail"

Great video! I have three “volunteer” wild mulberry trees. They just popped up one day and started growing. I didn’t know anything about mulberry trees at that time. I didn’t even know if the berries were edible. But I decided to let the trees grow. Every single year two of the trees produce sooooo many mulberries and they are always delicious. The third tree never produces any. 🤷. So glad I kept them and let them grow.

My hands have been purple all week from eating mulberries. Great health benefits!! My birds, critters & dogs are helping me eat them & keeping the mess smaller. I prune it to keep it shorter.

I was all ready to get mulberries to plant this year, but by the time I chose my varieties, they were sold out. Going to try again this year or next spring.

Remember these as a child. I would like to have one on my property but not sure if there is room. Thanks for the informative video

Just purchased a weeping mulberry tree. So looking forward to harvest!

My rabbits eat mulberry leaves as about 1/3 of their food and then I have meat AND berries ;)

I am learning to appreciate the mulberry that dominates the side yard (it drops on the cement driveway! Oh! Good place to put catch sheets! and the chickens can’t reach the driveway (plenty dropping where they can get some) thank you for this video

Everyone grow mulberry trees, I think they are the king of berries Also, put a net under the tree to catch the falling berries, dry the mulberries

I love your thinking.

With the right am fungi in the soil, mulberry could also be a mother tree and nurse nearby smaller plants and trees. It is very deep rooted so it can also do extensive nutrient cycling even if you don't harvest the fruit and it falls to the ground. Leaves can be fed to livestock. It is a very solid pioneer species.

I appreciate you showing the stem all the way through and how to eat it. I am just learning about Mulberries because I found several volunteer Mulberry leaves in a container where the original plant died over the winter and I just left it alone. I live in central Texas, so it should do well here. I plan to keep it growing and re-pot most of the Mulberry bundles so only 1 plant per pot and see how it goes. I could use the shade and the fruit (in 5+years as they're clearly grown from seed). I hope it's the Texas Mulberry variety. They're too small to distinguish which variety of Mulberry.

I rented a house with a huge black mulberry right next to the clothes-line.

Makes me want to make a plan for where to put one!

Mulberries are a favorite in Armenia where I grew up! For a long time I thought they only grow there, cause none of my international friends knew what I was talking about. 😂 I was so happy to discover them recently in many countries with warm climate. Hoping to have my own tree one day when I have a house with a garden 🙏. There are trees that produce white fruit - it doesn't stain, it's a bit less sweet (still not sour at all), which for me is a plus cause I can eat more of them! 😋And we eat them with the stems, even the part outside. A bit more to chew, but the fiber from it is good to get l, considering all the sugar in the berry itself.

Great video. I might be the lone dissenter who says if you are out in the country, it the red stains aren't that bad, and those that are don't matter.

Really good info. Thank you!

Excellent video - thanks!

Here an idea just before ripening place sheets under it so any you miss you can still get

The Illinois everbearing is a good hybrid.

Hello from Pennsylvania.. great video as always!

Thanks for the video. I have 3 younger trees in my orchard. Thinking that may be more than I need. 🤔

I had this same variety in my North Florida garden (zone 9a). I ended up having my neighbor pull it up with his backhoe. I had the same problems as you are talking about. Much too vigorous, since it’s warm enough here I have planted a new Pakistani in its place. BTW I would do a mid summer heavy pruning of the Illinois and it would stimulate another late summer flush of berries. My kids love picking mulberries. BTW, I know people up in South Georgia (zone 8b) who grow Pakistani mulberries just fine. I think you would have no problems growing them in Oregon.

Hey that yearly pruning is itself a yield, too! All that material goes to the compost, right? The tree itself is acting as a mass-pump, just pumping biomass into the rest of your system.

Grew up with mulberries in western NY. Am looking for more varieties for here in New Mexico.

The saying getting caught red handed comes from people stealing mulberries. In Queensland Australia we have the Queensland fig bird. This bird eats the best ones. I don't mind I grow it as a food hedge. If I get some berries it is all good. Propagation is so easy just get a new growing end cut it off and put it in soil, keep it moist.

I ve been standing under my mulberry tree every day now since a week, eating myself silly. My Pakistani mulberry is not really staining, I noticed. I also eat my berries, as soon as they are almost completely ripe, because otherwise the birds will beat me to it. That way, slightly underripe, they actually have a bit of acidity which is delicious!

I grew up in Illinois and we had a mulberry tree and three walnut trees in our yard. There was so much food growing wild too. Raspberries,wild onions, sorrel, apple trees, paw paw, chamomile, wild lettuce, dandelion, clover and so many different flowers to nibble on. The mile long walk to and from school was a great time to graze. Plus all the wild animals that we incorporated into our diet, fresh water mollusks, catfish, drum perch, carp, gar, mud puppies(I can't remember the proper name at the moment) crawdads! (😂) rabbit, deer, duck, geese, squirrel, snake, crickets and grass hopper, and a variety of small birds. Before I was allowed to take the .22 rifle out I would use a pump up pellet\bb gun. We always had a reverence for the life and death of an animal. Sadly, it seems most people are disconnected from where their meat comes from and the understanding of what it takes to have meat on the plate. It's not a mindless or heartless act when I eat meat, wether I harvest it or not. Part of creating the permaculture food oasis here is to incorporate animals for food and fiber. The only stipulation for anyone that wants food from here is that they harvest it themselves and only if it's ripe or mature...minus the tender leaves of greens for example. I'm willing to teach people how to harvest ethically and humanely. Sorry for being so long winded here, but as I was typing it made me think of your daughter's willingness to raise turkeys and to harvest them and not contribute to the industrialized farming of animals and contribute to the suffering of those animals. You're a pretty awesome mom in my humble opinion.

I’m thinking of putting in some dwarf everbearing mulberries

Thank you!

Haaaahaaaa 😅❤ Loving that Comment on the Mulberry High 16 ft Tall

Mulberry leaves can also be used as a fodder crop

I've heard birds prefer mulberry and some people use it to help keep the birds off other fruit trees.

use one of them blue plastic tarps. Lay under mullberry tree then shake tree. Love mine. We call them candy trees. Hard to pull away from once you get snackin.

Mulberries are my favorite since I was a little boy. I remember spending every summer sitting in a full mulberry tree. It’s a dye that can be used without a Morris as well!

I found a dwarf mulberry variety that should grow only up to 2mt, the fruits are still very tasty! So far I am happy with it!

Leaves are 18-20% protein, good for ducks n chickens (lil too high for chickens.. Dry for tea or eat straight out! Make a Tincture, cut up leaves in a quart jar and add 100 proof vodka leave in cool dry for 4weeks!! Soo much more to the Mulberry!!!!!!!

All you need now is silkworms 😂 mime will love the leaves 🍃

Awesome video

My koi go nuts for mulberries 😋.

Interesting. I love mulberries. I have, I believe, it is a Persian Mulberry. It is still small but produced fruit every year for a few months before it gets hot here. Once it gets hot, the fruit starts to dry out. I have never noticed the central stem. There is an edible, soft stem when I pick the fruit. Mulberry trees do fantastically out in the hot desert. Most of the trees seem to be non-fruiting ones. Mine is still small. I pick it using a chair. I do cover it during prime fruiting period. Once the fruit starts to be more scarce and it gets hotter, I open up the tree and birds, etc have a good time in the tree. The tree itself is fairly free of insects. It could be because it a small tree.

I had a mulberry tree over my driveway in my rental apartment in Los Angeles. The carpet under my desk at work started to turn dark purple from mulberry pulp on my shoes. My boss had it steam cleaned a couple of times. Ha

I grow about 10 feet away from the house prune the brances to reach on top the house i get on the roof and pick 1000s mulberries i have gallon size zip locks i picked today 4-5-24

oh... try the persian "king mulberry" it is more tart and wonderful. rubust 10m tree is easy to climb. as a child when we were stationed in iran i remember going to a friend's house where they had one. the adults sent us kids to pick a big bowl for them and we ate probably several bucket full while picking. it is the most delicious berry in existence and i am a major fruit nut! and yes... ALWAYS wear black when approaching these trees... or clothes that you do not mind staining. i only wear black... i wonder if that's why!

I don't grow my own mulberries because there's like 100 of them growing wild in my neighbourhood in parks, schoolyards, leaning over the sidewalks, etc. I go pick them when I walk my lab, which will eat them off the ground until she gets sick (one time she threw up like 4 lbs of it), so I need to limit her to about 5min of eating. I started picking them around June 25, and there's still a good amount of ripe ones, although there aren't any green ones left on the trees so it'll probably be over in a week or two. I mostly just grab branches and pull them down since they're pretty flexible.

I haven’t eaten any mulberries in last 30 years except Afghani dried without any taste. I am in Calgary zone 3/4 but never seen any in our climate. I think I should steel some fresh seeds from you and experiment grow here.

I like plants I can pick off for months, yes takes time but (Noob to mulberries) I'll take 2 months of, say blueberries, little bowl every day, over one week of excess I can't keep up with.

I love eating them but now I’m scared!

I have a couple of incredibly short, shrubby mulberry trees in the crack between my driveway and a retaining wall that have gotten cut down often. I knew that mulberries are very hardy, very big, and that the berries stain everything purple. I still wanted them on my property and thought it was unfortunate that they self-seeded in such a hostile area where they couldn't possibly grow to size. Nonetheless, they persist against all odds. I'm considering growing them espalier against the wall to see if that works, both for the trees and to produce some yield. I know espalier is not necessarily a favored permaculture technique since it requires constant maintenance, and it's certainly not natural, but I can't think of a better way to handle the situation. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

I got a strong Portlandia vibe at the start of this vid

Yum.

Mulberries LOVE hot weather. There were some trees outside the geology building where I went to university. I'd grab a handfull before class. But yeah, they make a YUGE mess.

Is your yearly cutting in the winter / early spring? I'm curious how well some selective summer cutting would work for size control...

I have 2 small mulberry trees that are volunteers!! I tried to get some clippings to grow but they all died. Then in my bleeding heart container I noticed them growing!!!!! So here is a question how do you sex the plant?!I heard that it's the female plant that produces larger sweeter fruits. And at what age will they be before fruiting. How ans when so I start cutting back to keep the tree a manageable height? My tree is only a few years old and roughly around 4-5 feet tall.

It's nice you've got all those spiders to take care of the fruit flies! I'm in Central Tx, (outside Austin) and Mulberry trees grow wild over here in The Hill Country. They are wonderful!! If I were to harvest as you do, I'm guaranteed to get a few with fruit flies in them. As it is, I rarely see any berries enter into my house bcuz my husband stands under the trees and eats them all! (He's not bothered about any fruit flies in his berry snack!) We have a lot less rain than you do, so our Mulberry trees are not as bushy as yours. But they grow like gangbusters nonetheless!! Ours look to have less branching, and their reach is quite wide. It's interesting to see how much difference the amount of rain makes with this tree! How glorious!!! One more thing- We have just recently noticed the Popcorn Disease on one of our trees. We have 4 Mulberry trees in total on our small property. I read the popcorn disease, (or fungus), has only been affected on Mulberry trees here in the South in the U.S. Probably due to the humidity we have? I'm not sure what the ranges of the popcorn disease is in other countries, but there seems to be a lot of studying of it in China & Japan, and the U.S. I tend not to read much on what they're doing bcuz of course, they're trying all the man made chemicals on it... I won't be doing any of THAT. Interestingly, the one tree we have with this fungus is in a separate part of the yard from the other 3 trees. The one infected is about 70 feet away from the others. Very near the Mulberry in question, about 10 feet away, is an old growth Live Oak who is also struggling. Coincidence? (I'm thinking probably not.) Also near those 2, are a small outcrop of invasive Ligustrum bushes. When I found out Ligustrum is allopathic, a light bulb went off for me, and I'm thinking that's the connection with all the struggling over there. I'm thinking that connection is as simple as the ligustrums creating an unhealthy soil environment for any & all other plants. Not even weeds grow near them! The soil is now bare over there, and it used to be a thicket of brush, very diverse. The only ligustrum testing I could find has been done only on the leaves. Apparently they contain a natural glyphosate. All 3 of these things (ligustrum, Mulberry, Oak) are growing in the same basic root space, with the Mulberry & Oak having been established long before the ligustrum arrived, which is probably the only reason they are still there. I'm convinced the Ligustrum bushes are in the process of choking out its competitors, any way it can - root space included! The ligustrum are VERY prolific. Very healthy, and I have never given them ANY care. Even through our present drought and hot temperatures of 112°, the ligustrum look very happy & healthy. It's a bit erie actually! Anyway- That's my own personal theory. That the ligustrum are taking over & eradicating even an Oak tree approximately 100 years old! There aren't any studies I could find in this vein concerning ligustrums & soil allopathy. Nor can I afford any scientific studies of allopathic root systems on my own. So my experiments with correcting any wrongs the ligustrums have created will be just that = my experiments! I'm planning on pollarding the Mulberry before next Spring in hopes of helping this tree out. I am also already in the process of adding healthy soil ammendments to the area. Although, I fear the ligustrums will only get stronger as I do that! So I'm in the process of finding someone to cut down the ligustrums too. The trunks on some of the ligustrums are more than 6 inches across!! They've been growing for about 15 years now. The area is a wild, untouched part of the yard, and I had no idea the ligustrums would end up being such a problem. But now I know. And so, now the healing of the land begins. I've got a few more ideas which admittedly are quite out of the ordinary, so I'll just keep those to myself until I find out if they work. All this to ask if anyone has any bright ideas on eradicating the popcorn fungus, I sure would like to hear them!! ANY IDEAS AT ALL !!! Just like raising kids- It takes a village to figure these things out!!

After fruit season, start cutting and feeding to anything that eats alfalfa, especially rabbits and small ruminants like goats. Horses enjoy them too. I love my mulberry trees, and essentially live on the fruit for about six weeks of the year.