Magnificent Mulberry

Mulberries have been ripening for the last week and I have been out every day picking what I can reach to put this column together. They grow in abundance just about everywhere in the U.S. and one tree can provide enough mulberries to easily give you enough fruit for all the recipes in today’s column plus feed all the fruit loving birds, like orioles, bluebirds and warblers, and still leave you wondering what to do with the rest. The real problem is trying to reach all the fruit on a mature tree… Mulberries grow on trees that can reach up to 50 feet tall. The fruit is usually about ¾ to 1 inch long, although on a young tree they can be much smaller. Each mulberry is actually many individual fruits called drupelets and are clustered on one stem to make up one mulberry. Immature fruits are white, green, or pale yellow. In most species, the fruits turn pink and then red while ripening, then dark purple or black, and have a mild, somewhat sweet flavor when fully ripe.