My yard was once woods and it wants very much to be woods again. Consequently I am always battling new trees.
  The first six years I lived here I tried to kill this tree. It just wouldn't die. A couple of years ago I gave up and the tree took off. Had I known what kind of tree it is I would have left it alone. For the first time it's bearing fruit.
    It's a White Mulberry Tree. There are two kinds of Mulberries here, White and the regular dark purple. Though I love both the white ones have a much higher sugar content. Also they won't stain when the birds poop them out like the purple ones do.
      The tree is very heavy with fruit that is just starting to ripen now. SCORE!

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Lovely! I personally like the black mulberries the most. They bear fruit here in Sydney around mid spring when there's basically no other fresh fruit available, so it's good timing. The trees look great too.

Awesome! I've never had mulberries, but they sound delicious.

    It's surprising that they're not grown commercially. 

You lucky dog!   We don't have a mulberry tree, but the lady down the block who does, begs me to come take as many as I can pick -- I can pick a LOT.  Mulberry pies, mulberry jam, mulberry vodka & gin, and more.  I freeze them whole, by the gallon. 

They grow wild all over the place here.  There are many trees I hit up while walking the dogs.  Now I don't have to travel to get berries. 

    I think I'm the only one in town who eats Mulberries.  When I was a kid everyone at them.  Yesterday a couple who were out for a walk were actually laughing at me.  How strange it must have looked to them, an old man eating a tree.  I don't care if I'm the only one who enjoys them.  More for me.

Rat Man wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2023 at 2:34pm:

I think I'm the only one in town who eats Mulberries.

I can relate. There's a mulberry tree at a park near to my house, I basically own the tree nobody else comes to eat them. I honestly don't know why, free fruit there which everyone ignores.

A friend and I "forage" for all sorts of exotic fruits at the large parks nearby where I go birding, slinging, and more.  They have a LOT of tropical fruit trees and bushes there, foraging is NOT prohibited, and very few other visitors take advantage,  The park Manager knows us, and knows what we're doing, and says "enjoy".  We get chocolate sapote, starfruit, malay and rose apples (not true apples), and all sort of things.  Makes our twice weekly wandering even more fun.

Sounds like my kind of outing, SS.  Wish I could go with you.

Mulberry season is just about completely over now.  My tree produced some fruit but I was expecting more.  Also the berries could have been sweeter but they were OK.  This is only the first year the tree produced fruit.  I expect it will be better next year. 

I just found a huge mulberry tree at "Mary Hill State Park" in WA on the Columbia river. it was awesome! We picked about a liter of berries and still could have kept going.  Made a really nice berry crumble. :)

The best tree in my neighborhood is in the corner of Timber Creek High School's property, by the exit.  It grows a tremendous amount of fruit.  Every day hundreds of kids pass and completely ignore it.  When I was a kid we would have stripped it of fruit.  I'm apparently the only one who eats off of it.  My gain. 

Nobody observes their surroundings anymore, eh?

Yfir wrote on Jun 30^th, 2023 at 7:17pm:

Nobody observes their surroundings anymore, eh?

I think the general consensus is that if it didn't come from a supermarket it's not food. 

I was always famaliar with the red(?) Mulberries and they are good but when I moved to an area that had white mulberries it really blew my mind how much sweeter they were. Im surprised this tree hasnt been hybridized and cultivated for its fruit. It produces a ton of fruit and they are very good. Never understood why people dont make it a more standard fruit tree.

Native and edible plants should be taught about in schools. But then again, that would leave less food for everyone else... and it could be hard to teach for schools in big cities without many plants around.

Morphy wrote on Jul 1^st, 2023 at 1:25pm:

I was always famaliar with the red(?) Mulberries and they are good but when I moved to an area that had white mulberries it really blew my mind how much sweeter they were. Im surprised this tree hasnt been hybridized and cultivated for its fruit. It produces a ton of fruit and they are very good. Never understood why people dont make it a more standard fruit tree.

I've talked to a few neighbors about eating Mulberries.  Somehow they have the reputation of being a "dirty fruit."  To me this is insane.  If Mulberries were commercially grown I'd certainly buy them. 

Its like people saying catfish is a dirty fish so they wont eat it. A fresh catfish straight from the water fried up is a thing of beauty. Weird how some things catch on and others dont.

So looking into it, it turns out mulberries can actually lower blood sugar so are a beneficial fruit for diabetics. The leaves act as an ACE inhibitor so lower blood pressure when made into a tea. Turns out mulberry is even more interesting than I previously thought.

Rat Man wrote on Jul 2^nd, 2023 at 8:54am:

I've talked to a few neighbors about eating Mulberries.  Somehow they have the reputation of being a "dirty fruit."  To me this is insane.  If Mulberries were commercially grown I'd certainly buy them.

How odd! Mulberries are pretty pest-free in my experience, not sure how anyone would get that sort of an impression.

"I can see folks complaining a bit about mulberries as fruit.  They don't often pull cleanly from the tree, and usually include a bit of stem, making them not as "clean"  to eat out of hand as blueberries or blackberries.

All the more for me to eat! I don't normally eat mulberries out of hand -- I cook them down into pie filling or jam...