It’s Mulberry season here! It’s exciting because I recently found out we actually have mulberry trees (two weeks ago I took a walk around the property with a friend when we spotted a heavily loaded mulberry tree. Upon further exploration I found about 9 in various forms of development- and I still have exploring to do). As we were preparing to purchase our farm, one of the conditions set forth by the lender was to have a pile of debris moved from an old barn. The owner had to cut down a mulberry tree in order to bulldoze the pile to a safe location to burn. I have to admit I was pretty sad about that mulberry tree and didn’t know if there were any more. Our kids first taste of mulberries came a few years ago when we moved to our last home in the city. The neighbor had a large mulberry tree and a lot of branches fell over on our side of the fence. The kids loved to pick that tree! They are in heaven having so many mulberries now.
The great thing about mulberry trees is that they are pretty plentiful no matter where you are – in the country or the city. You may find them at parks or your neighbors backyard. Harvesting is pretty easy – we use a large sheet of plastic (clear stuff on a roll – we used it to cover our windows in one of the rooms of our house over the winter. A tarp would be perfect, too) and a hoe (or whatever has a long handle and is lightweight). We lay the plastic under the tree and bang on the branches with the handle of the tool we are using. We usually work in cycles, only beating the branches that have cover under them. We funnel the berries into a bucket to sort out later. Usually only the ripe berries fall, but you get a few unrripe ones here and there. Just pick them out.
So what can you do with mulberries? Pretty much anything you can do with a blackberry.
- Eat them fresh. Itty bitty green stem and all. Wear your berry mustache with pride!
- Add them to yogurt, oatmeal, smoothies, parfaits, or….. peanut butter sandwiches? My kids are weird.
- Make muffins, bread, cake, pie and other yummy desserts featuring the mulberry.
- Freeze for later use (or snacking…)
- Dehydrate for later use (or snacking…. or add to homemade granola in place of raisins, etc.)
Day one of serious harvesting (not just kids stuffing their mouths from whatever berries are within reach) yielded 13.5lbs from 3 mature trees. There are other trees that are not ready to harvest yet but are loaded with berries. The trees we harvested from today still had plenty of berries left to ripen.
As soon as we got back in the house with the harvest, the first things my kids requested was a pie. So I made one quickly and the kids decided that it was, hands down, the best pie ever. Even better than apple pie (is that even possible??) If you have 3 cups of mulberries laying around, try this recipe which yields 1-9 inch pie.
Mulberry Pie
- 1 Double Crust pie crust
- 3/4c sugar
- 1/2c flour
- 3c mulberries
- dash of cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg
- 2tb butter
- 1tb milk
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 400F.
- Combine sugar and flour, then coat mulberries in this mixture. Sprinkle on the seasonings and gently toss. Set side.
- Place the bottom crust of pie crust in the pie pan. Pour in the pie filling.
- Cut the butter into small squares and place them all over the top of the pie filling.
- Place the top crust on the pie. Close the edges, cut some vent holes (5-6 slices around the top), then brush the crust with the milk.
- Bake at 400F for 15 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 350F and continue baking for 30 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and let pie cool a bit before digging in.