More Magical Mulberries

I revisited our old favourite Mulberry tree while it was still fruiting, with a friend. We used different methods to pick the tasty succulent berries. Initially we just reached up and gathered what we could from ground level, but as normal we could see larger darker fruit, annoyingly just out of reach.

So we spread out an old sheet over the ground and then gave the thinner branches a good shake. This method was fairly useful, if somewhat indiscriminate and the Mulberries were easy to spot as they fell.

It was a very enjoyable time and out containers were quickly filled to the brim and beyond. Obviously we had to eat some before we could gently squeeze the lids on. Then we cycled off contented and coated in sweet sticky juice.

When I got home, I decided to freeze my delicious hoard and decide how to use them later. I laid them out on baking trays before slotting them into the freezer, then bagged them up later. This means you can choose exactly how many you want to use at any time later on.

Hopkins made a smashing smoothie with some of her Mulberries - the recipe follows...

• 1 frozen banana 
• 1 Handful of mulberries
• 2 cm fresh ginger (grated)
• 1 cup rice milk (or any other milk) 

BLEND...

CONSUME!

Blackberries are particularly abundant at the moment and Hazel nuts will soon be dropping too. We made our first Bramble and Apple crumble of the year - hopefully there will be many more to come.

Dial M for Mulberry

The morning was muggy, or was it Tuesday? I get confused...

The slim blonde dame in blue hat was staring at me through her fingers. She looked like she might be hiding something - her hands were dripping with a sticky red claret-like liquid. 

It looked like it should be a clear cut case.

Then I noticed that the girl had an accomplice, loitering nearby. He was a small chap who looked like he had not eaten for a week. He was sporting a blue hat too but I was not sure if that was significant. Their getaway vehicles were well oiled and between the two of them they looked guilty as sin.

Someone whispered the word Mulberry but what did that mean? Could it be some kind of code or a clue?

Later that night I asked Uncle Google if he knew anything about Mr Mulberry. 

He related mysterious tales about silk worms, the orient and trees that bleed. A distant memory about the unlucky kimono flashed through my mind. However, after mulling it over, I was convinced this was just a red herring. 

I seemed to be going round and round...

Then I remembered a post I once saw about a sticky sweet juicy fruit - somewhere halfway between a Raspberry and a Blackberry that grows on a tree called the Mulberry.

Apparently, these two suspicious characters had located all the Southampton Mulberry trees on a secret map and then raided them on stealth-bikes. By the time you read this, their blue hats and juice smeared faces will have vanished into the ether. 

Mulberry Madness

All Smiles at the Allotment

Mulberries are a gorgeously tasty sweet fruit and once you locate a tree, you will want to keep an eye on it and visit it regularly. The fruits sweeten as they darken and they will not all be ripe at the same time. 

Under the Mulberry Umbrella

Of course the darkest sweetest fruits, are also the softest and the blood red juice can tend to get everywhere and stain things, like fingers.

Guilty as Charged

We visited a favourite tree when on holiday in Devon. Then on our return to Sunny Southampton we picked a load off a local tree.  Before we entered the house again we checked the soles of our shoes (fortunately) and had to spend a while brushing the sticky berries off them, that could have made a dreadfully messy mess.

Come Back Next Week

The children they looked up a recipe for Blackberry and Apple Crumble, my favourite; we already had a load of Blackberries from the allotment. They used a mixture of Blackberries and Mulberries, along with some apples that we had picked earlier.

Tastes Better than it Looks!

I failed to take photos of the children cooking (probably a good thing in retrospect) but they actually did a fantastic job, rest assured the result was a feast for the taste buds. By the time did I remember the camera, there was barely anything left!

Mulberry Murder Mystery

While on holiday in sunny Devon recently, we visited Greenways – Agatha Christie’s House, near Dartmouth. We got a small ferry over the Dart river from Dittisham (another lovely place) and clambered up the hill to the house.



A Jay's Feather and a Mulberry

 I was wandering about the massive garden with the children when we spotted a Mulberry tree. Closer inspection revealed that many of the fruits were ripe, and so, purely in the spirit of the National Trust’s (who  own the house) 50 things to do before you’re Eleven and Three-quarters – we set about picking and eating as many of the sweet juicy fruit as we could lay our fingers on. Later we checked out another big Mulberry tree, in Salcombe too. 

These fruits are easy to find under the leaves of the tree but they can be tricky because a) They do not all ripen at once. b) The ripe ones are likely to drop off as soon as you shake the tree. c) The blood red, honeyed juice gets everywhere can make it look as if you might, just have slaughtered someone with your bare hands! 

The reward, for those who recognise the trees, bother to find the ripe fruit and risk the suspicious stares of passers-by, as they note the incriminating evidence, guiltily smeared across your mouth and fingers; is an incredibly luscious berry, tasting something like a syrupy blackberry/raspberry cross.

When we got home we found another tree in Winchester and I decided to try creating Mulberry liquor. I used gin and my surplus berries but I had to fight the children off, to prevent a Mulberry massacre; they would have scoffed the lot straight away if I had relented. I will report back on this project later but I do already have a very good feeling about it. 

Murder She Wrote!

 There is a Mulberry tree in the Southampton parks too, for those who know where and when to look…

Definately Guilty!



Round and Round the Mulberry Tree

We have just returned from a holiday in beautiful sunny Devon. While there, we were fortunate to notice a Mulberry tree in Salcombe.

At first glance it did not look like there were many fruits on the ancient looking tree but I sent my daughter (the official taster) to check and on closer inspection we realised that a lot of the fruit was just hidden under the leaves.

The red Mulberries are unripe, they look similar to Raspberries but felt harder; they also taste less interesting and are slightly tart. We picked a couple to try but the darker black/red fruits are far sweeter and delightfully palatable.

I imagine that Mulberries are now a fairly rare and I'm sure that with a little research some interesting traditional recipes could be turned up.  I may experiment with the local tree in a Southampton park. One thing is clear though, it would be much easier to pick Mulberries off a bush than a tree.