Summer Delight.......

We gardeners are a patient lot, planting seeds, tubers,canes and bulbs in the hope of a wonderful harvest, how long would you wait for fruit from a tree?
Memories of Mulberry picking as a child and the beautiful sweet fruit that was eaten straight from the tree and then with ice cream for dessert was enough for me to want to plant one when we first brought our farm.
                                                                                    

                                                                          

Sixteen years on and our precious tree has over come many trials, firstly rabbits which liked to chew the tender young branches, then a ten year drought when any spare washing water was feed to the thirsty roots, and of course fighting for the few berries from the numerous birds visiting our garden.
Each year I've spread manure and pruned where needed..........
Each year I've watched and waited...........
This year i netted.................
This year i have many plump juicy berries............
Enough to enjoy for breakfast with yogurt and muesli...........
 And even enough to make a few jars of jam...........

Mulberries ripen in stages over a couple of weeks and are easy to tell when ripe as they are nearly black in color.

                                                                                

They are large berries, mulberry on the right, blackberry on the left.

Great flavour and as i only had a small amount i cooked them with some red plums and made 4 jars of jam.

The Mulberry Tree is a long lived tree and in many country towns and old farms they can be found once planted by the early settlers and now over a hundred years old.


A little blackberry picking too............

A bumper year for blackberries too!!
I think one of the things i love most about about berry picking is the time spent with family and friends, talking and laughing while picking, time just floats by........