Mulberry Trees

I used to have a very small garden plot out in my back yard.  I'd lug bags and bags of topsoil and composted cow manure around there each year and dig it into the garden area.  Until I got to where I could no longer do that.  Now it is just another part of my back yard and covered in grass.

Of late I've been thinking of putting some kind of dwarf fruit tree back there.  All that good dirt and hard labor should not go to waste on grass nobody but me and the lawn care man will ever see.  While perusing the offerings on the Stark Brothers website I came across a listing for a Mulberry Tree.

Now, those trees are much too large (some times) and I doubt they would do well in our central South Carolina climate.  But, it got me remembering other Mulberry Trees from back in my childhood days in Kentucky.  I loved to eat Mulberries so I knew where all the local trees were growing.

The two most prominent Mulberries I can recall  were one that grew beside an old coal bank (mine) just up the Julie Fork (of Nat's Creek) and one that grew on a small bank in what used to be the garden at my sister and brother-in-law's old house and where they put a trailer later.

That Mulberry tree up in the first little hollow on the right up the Julie Fork was the place to be in May when the Mulberries got ripe.  They were also the favorite food of squirrels.  One could get there before daylight and find a good sitting spot up the hill from the tree so the top part of the tree was about eye level and just keep shooting the sqirrels as they came to the tree for breakfast.  In May there were a lot of young squirrels as well.  Perfect for frying.

Now, May was no where near any hunting season but hunting season was just two meaningless words when I was growing up.  Food was more important than game laws.  We never hunted during the mating season and when game was pregnant but later on it was all over for young animals.  And when one got all the squirrels that came to the tree or all one wanted there were always plenty of berries that had fallen from the tree to eat.

That tree was pretty tall.  The one that was in the old garden out from Homer and Mary Jane's old house was pretty small.  Best I can recall it was around eight to ten feet tall.  I'd go stuff myself on berries every spring until they moved in the trailor and got rid of the little Mulberry.

Honestly, I don't even know if I'd like a Mulberry now.  I don't know if it is me or the berry or a little bit of both but I can buy all the blackberries, raspberries and strawberries I want but they just do not taste the same as when I was a kid.  Maybe it was because berries were such a treat for me that made them taste better.  Maybe it is because of the way they are grown, harvested and shipped now them make them so tasteless.  I don't know but those berries in my memories were so much better than any I find today.