I stood in my backyard last July staring at my two-year-old mulberry tree, and my stomach dropped. The leaves were yellowing, the branches looked limp, and the whole tree just had that unmistakable “something is very wrong” look. I’d been so proud of that tree. I’d spent two summers nursing it along, dreaming about the … Read more
I lost my first mulberry tree eleven days after planting it. I’d spent weeks researching varieties, drove forty minutes to a specialty nursery, paid good money for a beautiful bare-root Illinois Everbearing, and dug what I was sure was a perfectly fine hole. Eleven days later, it was leaning sideways after a storm, and within … Read more
I stood in my backyard in mid-June, staring at a white sheet I’d spread under my mulberry tree — stained a deep, irreversible purple — and I just wanted to cry. I had timed everything wrong, wasted two full weekends, ruined a good bedsheet, and still barely managed a decent harvest. If you’re just getting … Read more
I want to tell you about the morning I spread a brand-new white bedsheet under my mulberry tree, stepped back to admire my cleverness, and then watched my dog sprint directly through the center of it, sending two pounds of freshly fallen berries into the air like a purple fireworks display. She came inside looking … Read more
Last summer, I climbed a wobbly extension ladder propped against my 20-foot mulberry tree, grabbed a branch way above my head, and promptly watched the whole ladder slide sideways along the trunk. I grabbed the branch. The ladder hit the grass. I hung there like the world’s least graceful ornament, covered in mulberry juice, heart … Read more
