Ruth Nakamura · August 6, 2026
Mulberry trees are forgiving in a lot of ways — they’ll tolerate neglect, shrug off imperfect soil, and still push out fruit when other trees would give up. But if you want to actually expand your collection, feed your trees well, and get the soil conditions right, you need more than a shovel and good … Read more
Ruth Nakamura · July 24, 2026
I’m kneeling in the mulch near my patio’s edge, pushing back the accumulated debris with my fingers to check on something that’s been bothering me for weeks. There—just under the surface—is a root, thicker than I expected, and I can trace it snaking toward the concrete. It’s the moment when all that fruit and shade … Read more
Ruth Nakamura · July 4, 2026
It was an unusually dry spell that May — the kind that catches you off-guard in the Pacific Northwest — and I found myself watering my young white mulberry more frequently than usual. As I worked through the canopy one afternoon, refilling the soaker hose, I stopped cold. The leaves staring back at me seemed … Read more
Ruth Nakamura · July 4, 2026
Standard fruit-tree nursery tags won’t tell you that black mulberries stubbornly resist cuttings, or that a seedling might spend a decade producing nothing but leaves and male flowers. Garden books treat mulberries as an afterthought, if they mention them at all. The propagation advice buried in those sources assumes you’re working with something cooperative—apples, pears, … Read more
Ruth Nakamura · June 26, 2026
Most new mulberry growers assume that your USDA Hardiness Zone is destiny—that if you’re in Zone 5, you pick from the Zone 5 mulberries, and that settles it. But I’ve learned through growing twelve different cultivars that this assumption crumbles the moment you actually compare what different mulberry species can tolerate. The real story is … Read more
Ruth Nakamura · June 23, 2026
Don’t expect a weeping mulberry to behave like your average ornamental tree. These grafted beauties demand specific handling, or they’ll revert to upright growth and lose the cascading form that makes them worth growing in the first place. What You’re Actually Planting It pays to understand the structure underneath before you dig a hole. Weeping … Read more
Ruth Nakamura · February 2, 2026
Stains happened to me before I understood what I was doing. I showed up at a family barbecue that summer with discolored hands, a shirt that would never come clean, and a tale that got better with each retelling. By now I’ve developed a whole approach to harvesting, processing, and storing mulberries without walking around … Read more
Ruth Nakamura · January 31, 2026
Between 40 and 65 pounds of fruit hangs from my mature mulberry trees most seasons—an amount that seems impossible until you realize how much of that production depends on what happens in the soil beneath the canopy. I spent over a decade watching otherwise vigorous trees plateau and decline, only to discover the culprit wasn’t … Read more
Ruth Nakamura · January 27, 2026
Are you wondering why your mulberry seems to struggle through its first year when you’ve done everything the internet tells you to do? I missed my peak harvest window during my first two growing seasons because I treated mulberry ripening like a fixed date instead of what it actually is—a weather-dependent window that compresses and … Read more
Ruth Nakamura · January 25, 2026
Hi there! I’m Ruth Nakamura, a backyard orchardist living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Over the past 15 years, I’ve dived deep into the world of mulberries, growing about 12 different cultivars right in my own yard. My favorites include Black Beauty, Chinook, Illini Star, and Ozark Premier, each offering its own unique flavor and … Read more
