Look at all those mulberries forming!
Our mulberry plant from Novice Gardener has started a new season of fruiting – and there are even more fruits than before!
The fruits are getting bigger as the plant matures!
They are also getting bigger than they were before, which is what I’d heard the plants do as they mature. This proves to me that this variety from Novice Gardener is definitely different from the one I’d initially grown, because the first one is still putting out tiny fruits.
At the last harvest, I thought that the smaller variety had sweeter fruits. However, I just had one of the almost black, ripe fruits from Novice Gardener’s plant, and it was definitely sweet as well. You just have to give the fruits time to ripen and turn from red to dark purple.
The only problem is that the birds in the garden have been sampling the fruits as well – some have been pecked at while others have been plucked and abandoned – I found one on the ground just a few metres away from the plant. And then there are the other people (besides me!) who know about the plant and have been enjoying the fruits as well…
Well, I’m not going to allocate a plant for the birds, like Novice Gardener has done. After all, we have just the one plant, which I am planning on propagating from. So, that means I have to take measures to hoard what fruits I can.
Last fruiting season, when the plant was smaller, I tried this to keep the birds out:
This was a little tedious to set up – a fence of wire around the plant (which kept trying to close in on the plant) with a grid to close up the open top.
It worked but was cumbersome. Now that the plant is bigger and bearing fruits higher up, I’ve tried this:
Staking our claim from the birds with bits of netting wrapped loosely around the bunches of fruits.
It works, and even catches the ripe fruits when they fall, if you close up the bottom.
Look at these gorgeous, big mulberries! Thank you, Novice Gardener, for passing along cuttings from your plant!
I’m glad I did. Yum! And yes, I shared! 
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