Pickles by Brian Crane for October 15, 2020

And a fruitless Mulberry as well.

Have three mulberry trees and yes they do stain, but they make mowing so much more enjoyable in the summer. "Here we go around the mulbery bush’ and pick ripened fruit as you go past each time.

might as well get an apricot from the grocery store, take out its pit, and bury it… hoping it’ll grow

Mulberries are pretty worthless in my opinion: They’re bland in flavor and messier than any other tree I’ve ever dealt with. AND they attract nuisance birds. If you happen to love them, please accept that reasonable people may differ.

So—no apricots is a bad thing?

Mulberry trees are invasive aliens where I live. Sadly a lot of people planted them a few years ago because the children loved collecting the leaves to feed their silkworms. :)

I used to love mulberries. Back in Petersburg we had a Reading RR track run up the west side of the borough. There were mulberry bushes along the track. I’d take a pot down there and pick them, wash them at home and have them for dinner. The land along the tracks was sold for development and the bushes disappeared.

These are Mulberry days!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_(TV_series)

That could be it, Earl!

And now since it’s been around for five years, it’s going to be a pain to get rid of!

Oops!

Earl some trees take 10 to 30 years to produce ! Some trees also require a male and female tree to produce ;-)

All the better to go around on an early frosty morning. Unless it’s spewing pounds of pollen.

Earl is losing it…

Back in the mid to late 50’s, we lived in a place with a mulberry tree in the back yard. In those days, laundry was put on a clothes line to dry. My mother hated that tree because when the berries got ripe, the birds would eat them and leave the “deposits” on her laundry, which she would have to wash over again.

If it’s a mulberry tree, it would be obvious. They start bearing the second year.

I’m going to have to Mull this over for a time.

“Who put the “Ape” in Apricots?

Whadda they got, that I ain’t got?

…Courage!"

From Wizard of Oz…couldn’t help myself…everytime I see an apricot…

Mulberry trees are real? I thought they only existed in nursery rhymes.. kind of like unicorns

If true, that would explain it. It would also explain a lot of other things, Earl.

Yum, mulberries! Sadly, they were a bust this year.

Yeah. That’s probably it.

xxx

We had an apricot tree in my mom’s back yard. One year it produced so much fruit that they had to prop up the branches to keep them from breaking due to the weight of the fruit. We at a LOT of apricots that year.

One year, a huge branch finally did break off (about a quarter of the tree!). As it happened, the dog was out in the back yard when it happened. What we heard from inside was a loud crack and a boom and then the dog (a beagle) barking and howling so we went to see what had happened. The dog was running around the back yard in a frenzy, the same way he always did when he knew he was guilty of something. He thought the tree breaking was his fault.

Now you can not harvest silkworms instead.

Earl, the truth is it is an apricot tree, and your neighbor stole them!

He does’nt know what he’s talking about Earl!!! Lol

could have something to do with it

I have found that there are two types of red mulberries. The kind I grew up with, which are like long, narrow blackberries with small drupes, a sweet taste but lackluster flavor; and the kind I found much later, with shorter, broader berries with larger drupes and a flavor that explodes with sugar, acid, and a flavor that is like every red Kool Aid flavor combined. Those are very good indeed, but I only know one tree.

5-7 years to be fully fruiting. Non-bred ones take longer.

That worked for the avocado seed my wife planted years ago. We now get hundreds of avocados every year.