Mulberry tree fruiting in Autumn

I grew a white mulberry from a tiny cutting a while ago.  It has grown into a lovely little tree that I am rather fond of.

Most mulberries in Australia are white mulberries (Morus alba), and the vast majority of these are NOT white fruited.  They produce delicious fruit that is dark and stains everything.  While many people claim to grow black mulberries, I am yet to see or hear of a black mulberry (Morus nigra) anywhere in Australia.

I like mulberries in general and I rather like this tree.  I live in town so can only grow a mulberry if it is not going to stain things.  This winter when my tree was dormant I planted it outside my fence.  This is risky as we don't mow there so it could get slashed by council, or people could steal it.  But it is a great spot for a mulberry tree so I am risking it and hoping for the best.

This past summer we had weeks of intense thick smoke, and heat, and it was incredibly dry, but my water tank was low so I had very little water to spare for my mulberry tree.  I felt bad that my tree was outside the fence in the blasting sun with no water to get established, but it is a survivor and kept growing.  The mulberry tree produced a huge amount of fruit, but it all aborted as it was too dry this year. 

Normally mulberries ripen in December and early January here.  Once the smoke cleared it was still very dry, when the rains eventually came my little tree put on a lot of growth.  Then it started to produce fruit, in April! 

My mulberries are ripening in April

I have never seen a mulberry fruit this late in Autumn, the frosts could be here any day.  But this tree was determined to produce a crop this year no matter how difficult the situation.

Most of the fruit was stolen by birds and other animals.  Then a few started to ripen.  They weren't exactly white, but they were sweet and delicious and non-staining.

I kind of forgot to take pictures of the mulberries until we had eaten most of them.  Some were more white than this, others were slightly more of an even lavender colour.  None of them were dark.

Most got more lavender coloured than this when fully ripe

White mulberries are a great tree: they are low maintenance, they are very hardy, they are productive, the leaves can be used as silkworm food or high protein stock feed, the leaves can be used as a vegetable or a herbal tea.  Mulberries like this one that won't stain the footpath, or the washing, or the kid's faces, are excellent.

If my little tree makes it through winter without being run over by a slasher or stolen or something horrible like that I should try to take a few cuttings in spring.  I will eventually try to offer some for sale through my for sale page over winter when they are dormant.