Why You Should Plant a Mulberry Tree and How To Do It

If you're starting a garden for food or living an off grid life, there are a ton of great fruits and vegetables you can grow right on your own land. You can grow a variety of foods on your land, and you don't even need a lot of land to do it. You can grow quite a sustainable vegetable garden on just an acre of land, sometimes even less. Growing foods like squashes, potatoes, leafy greens, and peas can be a great start to your vegetable garden. For an off grid fruit garden, you will want to invest in some fruit trees as well as some berry bushes and trees. One of the berry trees you may consider is the mulberry tree. There are two types of mulberry native to the U.S. There's the Red Mulberry and Texas Mulberry. You may also find the White Mulberry which was imported from China, but it's not a native American plant. These Mulberry plants are each quite unique, for example, the Texas Mulberry is actually a bush more than a tree.

Mulberry trees are deciduous which means they shed their leaves in the fall, and then they grow back in the spring along with flowers that produce fruit. These Mulberry trees 75 years or more, making them a great garden addition. The Red Mulberry trees are able to grow over 60 feet, and White Mulberry trees can grow to be around 40 feet. The Texas Mulberry Bush is shorter but can still grow to be around 6 to 12 feet tall. Normally, we see plants producing flowers after the leaves have been grown. But Mulberries produce flowers before the new leaves. Instead of being pollinated by bees, their flowers are actually pollinated by the wind which is pretty interesting. The fruit will start out green then turn white and go to a deep reddish purple color which is when they are ripe. These fruits are actually rare to find in grocery stores because of their short shelf life. The fruit ripens over time, and they won't ripen off of the tree, so it's best to pick them only when their ripe. Other berries like raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries will continue to ripen after they've been picked so you can pick them all at once.

If you want to add one of these awesome mulberry trees to your off grid garden, it's actually fairly simple. You can grow a tree of your own from a cutting or from a new small tree bought from a nursery. .First you'll decide where you want to put your mulberry tree. The red mulberry tree grows really fast, and it can get very large. So unless you can keep up with regular pruning, you'll want to give the tree it's own space when you're starting a garden. You'll also want to make sure you plant it in full sun, so not around any buildings that can shade it out. They grow well in zone 7 and above, and they're okay with drought and poor soil quality, but the soil should be well drained to avoid root rot. You can give your tree a 5-8-5 fertilizer 3 times a year to get a good harvest. If you prune the tree make sure to do it when the tree is in the early winter months when the tree is dormant. If you do a heavy pruning, you won't get as much fruit the next season. Once you've harvested some mulberries enjoy the great benefits, they offer including vitamin C and Iron. Get started with your off grid life by starting an off grid or on grid garden of your very own.***