Garden, Plant, Cook!

Thursday, April 18, 2019

The Blackberry "Tree" of My Childhood

Dear Folks,

Just a short post about my "blackberry tree" aka Black Mulberry.

I ordered two seedlings Mulberry Dwarf (Morus nigra) in December 2014 and they arrived in late spring 2015.  By August 2015 they were about 8-9 inches tall and ready to be put in the ground.

The trees are at least 12 feet tall and growing.  I have not pruned them.  While the one pictured above is producing a lot of fruit the other one is shaded and produces very little.  No matter they are fine healthy trees and someday they will be the stars of our shaded front area.

So, the back story is, growing up on the east coast, about a block away from us was an abandon orchard where we tasted yellow cherries before anyone even knew they existed, along with sour cherries, apples and pears.

But for a short season the star for my sister and I were a pair of "blackberry trees" at the end of our cul de sac and the neighbors allowed us to climb the trees and pick the fruit.  (More like they just ignored us because we did not damage anything.)

It was many decades later that I determined our "Blackberry Tree" was a dwarf black mulberry.  When I tasted berries this morning from MY tree it took me back to my childhood picking those wonderful black berries.  Truth be told the ones growing on the east coast are quite a bit bigger than on my tree, but I do not care.  Picked perfectly ripe (when they pull easily from the branch) they are the taste of my childhood.

As you can see from the photo there are a lot which will be ripening and I hope to have a nice batch to serve with dinner on Easter.

Have a wonderful and safe holiday,


-- Catherine, The Herb Lady

P.S.  I discovered a glitch in my posting engines so if you missed my May Planting tips here is the link for that post.  I hope I got the glitch fixed :-)

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