Ruth Nakamura · April 6, 2026
During my opening years managing mulberry trees on this property, I made just about every rookie mistake possible: I’d let whole branches worth of ripe fruit drop and rot untouched, the deck took on permanent dark stains I’m still trying to scrub away, and the ground beneath my Pakistan variety was basically a mulberry compost … Read more
Ruth Nakamura · April 4, 2026
Forty-one pounds. That’s what my Illinois Everbearing dropped on me across nine days last June, and it’s the number that finally pushed me from “maybe I’ll try a batch someday” into buying real equipment instead of improvising with a bucket and a balloon. Mulberries ferment fast and hard — the sugar content and the sheer … Read more
Ruth Nakamura · April 2, 2026
On my patio right now sits a wine bottle with a label dated three summers ago—the glass still shows the faint purple stain where I set it down after bottling, a ghost-mark of the work that went into it. That bottle is proof of what happens when you take the mountain of mulberries dropping from … Read more
Ruth Nakamura · January 4, 2026
Everyone tells you that fermenting fruit at home requires fancy equipment and years of experience. I’d argue that’s mostly nonsense—what actually matters is understanding why certain basic tools exist before you skip them. My first batch failed catastrophically because I ignored every single one of them. By my second attempt, working with the right gear … Read more
