We’ve started picking the mulberries. Our ginormous mulberry tree is fully loaded. The first fruits were made into mulberry scones this morning.

You probably never thought about eating mulberries. I know I thought mulberry trees were just a nuisance because our chickens would eat the berries and walk all over the yard depositing new trees and we would have to one-cut-prune them down followed by a squirt of Brush-B-Gon. The sheep dearly love to eat mulberry leaves, which is why we don’t have a mulberry tree problem in the sheep pastures. However, I let one tree grow large near the chicken coop because it provided them with much needed shade. I never really considered harvesting the berries for eating.

Then the mulberry tree gave a bumper crop of mulberries last year. (Probably because I regularly empty dirty duck pool water right over the roots of the tree = heavy fertilization.) Turns out, towards the end of the season, we discovered we adored mulberry crumble. So, I am determined to use as many of this year’s berries up as I can.

Mulberries have a mild flavor, not too sweet nor too tart. They are their own flavor and unlike blackberries or blueberries. The Husband calls them “baby bear” berries as Goldilocks decided Baby Bear’s bed and porridge were just right…

There are probably a 1001 different foods you can make with mulberries. The sky is the limit and your imagination the inspiration. I have a short list of recipes I want to try this year such as cocktails, ice cream, sorbet, danish, preserves, fruit leather, etc. Obviously there will be crumble and scones, those are a given. Whatever you can put berries in you can put mulberries in!

You get a gold star if you can find the sheep in the cover image!