The Easiest Fruit Tree (That Gives you Free Organic Berries for LIFE!)

[@davidthegood]

Simplify your gardening and grow more food - get my new book Minimalist Gardening here: amzn.to/49tDRky

[@minermike61]

Does anyone know what ever happened to Ice Age Farmer? Is he alive?

[@FloridaFoodForest]

I was pruning my mulberry tree and cut the branches up to use for mulch. They literally started growing new trees from pieces of branches I just threw on the ground. Those new trees are doing great.

[@gaberoo9099]

Are you in South Florida?

[@FloridaFoodForest]

@@gaberoo9099 I’m in Central Florida. Tampa Bay Area.

[@christinathompson9780]

Mulberries are prevalent in Oklahoma as well but not where I am at. I was just in Louisiana and foraged about 2 lbs. I am going to try to take them home and grow a mulberry tree from some of the fruit. ☺️ I do need to see how to propagate them from seed.

[@Danny.._]

mulberries grow everywhere - i moved to a new house up here in connecticut and found in the backyard there were two mulberry trees back behind some other trees and overgrown with some vines and obviously forgotten for years, but they were still thriving and producing fruit.

[@ryansearles6078]

So glad you mentioned CT my home state! Was originally thinking it was just a southern climate thing but now I’ll give them a shot!

[@hpatel5247]

Do you know what type of mulberry is that?

[@agapefield]

I rescued some 3g dwarf Mulberry bushes from a garden center for $6 I got 5 for the price of one and watered them and fed with organic fertilizer and they are beautiful!

[@gaberoo9099]

wow. Is that in northern florida or georgia? Not asking for specific location, but just an idea where you would have garden centers carrying mulberry bushes (I've never seen our local garden centers carrying mulberry bushes...maybe some nurseries might though; Excalibur--a few hours north of us--definitely has them, but betting more expensive than that!). Thanks.

[@terriehunt2438]

I got 3 dwarf everbearing mulberry trees at home depot.

[@agapefield]

@@gaberoo9099 at Lowe's in Port Arthur Texas.

[@agapefield]

There is a wild one in our backyard that is very tall. I have to share with birds....

[@gaberoo9099]

@@agapefield Nice. I have to do likewise with our birds (but they enjoy other fare: mangoes, starfruit, sapodilla).

[@danfay4860]

This video was brought to you today by the Cactus Cantina and the letter “C”😂😂

[@Cheezitnator]

I have to keep chopping the top off mine to keep it short enough for me to pick without a ladder. Dwarf mulberry doesn't mean what you think it means, lol.

[@bjstark5069]

That's a great idea, I'm a shorty, and can't reach very high. Also, you can use the tops you cut off to start new plants....I know one more thing I'm doing this weekend!

[@h-dawg6462]

You just reminded me of a family property in Turkey that I used to frequent that has dozens of massive mulberry trees around the complex. They are so delicious and plentiful, that my relatives would dry them and sell them. They become like a natural chewy gummy candy when dried! I love em!!

[@davidthegood]

That is fantastic. I was almost born in Turkey.

[@h-dawg6462]

@@davidthegood almost? i'm intrigued dave, tell me more!!... i'm half-turkish on my mother's side but was born in london.

[@johngault8688]

I got at least seven of these trees and I didn't plant a single one. I credit the mocking birds and the occasional flock of Cedar Waxwing birds that come thru my area.

[@jiggjohns1028]

I have learned cuttings I believe from your videos and have given away dozens of mulberry bushes I started and figs I started from cuttings🤘🏻and fixing to do about 100 more mulberry cuttings. So easy and a confidence booster.

[@Emma-3010]

Zone 5b (now 6a, HA!) Neighbor has a black mulberry tree, it's HUGE and produces a massive amount of fruit which is used only by the birds. I got his permission to harvest some this year, can't wait to try some mulberry recipes!

[@cdevidal]

The first fresh mulberries I'd ever tasted came from a tree we grew ourselves :-)

[@AAHomeGardening]

Mulberries are so good

[@Green.Country.Agroforestry]

How easy are mulberries to propagate? SUPER Easy! Every spring before everything wakes up, I go and prune our morus rubra .. got to prune that native mulberry, or it will grow taller than the house! There will always be a lot of little twigs left over from the pruning. Then I cut them up about 6" long, pull off all of the leaves (if they have started breaking) except for one or two at the top (and, this is assuming that the cambium layer is green, and the twig is alive) jam that puppy into some moist peat moss in a kiddie pool under a shade tree, where the sprinklers will hit it whenever they turn on. By the next spring, its time to transplant all of the new trees. _This method also works with cuttings taken after fruiting, so if you are capturing a wild mulberry, you may sample the fruit before deciding to bring one home._ This year we hit saturation with mulberry trees .. from now on, I am propagating them for export, huzzah!

[@meanqkie2240]

Thank you! I guess I thought I was at the mercy of the random birdshoo! Will certainly do this with my good darkfruiting tree! Got one or two coming up where they’ll shade the chicken coop and hopefully drop fruit in there for my girls to replant!

[@Green.Country.Agroforestry]

@@meanqkie2240 I foresee happy chickens in your future

[@christinathompson9780]

They also love elderberries.

[@breesechick]

Thanks ❤

[@officialDavidRees]

My kids and I literally just came in from eating the few black mulberries that were available on our two Rachel mulberry trees. Lol

[@TheRainHarvester]

In what area are you that they are already fruiting?

[@officialDavidRees]

@@TheRainHarvester South Alabama. We're right between zone 8a and 8b

[@lambsquartersfarm]

We have native red mulberries… only about a quarter bear fruit, so we clone the fruiting one and use non fruiting for firewood… they put on size like no other

[@brokenmeats5928]

I love ALL David The Good videos!

[@Prepping-for-Heaven]

I had never seen a mulberry tree before we bought our house 50+ years ago. They're growing all over our neighborhood and we've had a small bush growing on our beach for all these years. The poor thing has been nearly totally destroyed, I don't know how many times, but it's like the cat in the old folk song. We thought it was a goner so many times, but it keeps coming back! I think I'm going to take a few cuttings and stick them in the ground all around the yard, because they're so easy to grow, and you can't beat the fruit. Pies, cakes, put them on your bowl of cereal, whatever. They're all good ways to eat them!

[@CraftEccentricity]

I have 3, and taking lots of cuttings this year. I just completed an elderberry and blackberry hedge here in FL 9a

[@davidthegood]

That is fun.

[@RevRedmondFarrier]

I have one really big mulberry tree in my back yard and I love it. The only drawback (other than it being too tall to easily harvest from) is the seeds got spread around and now I have mulberry trees popping up everywhere (except of course where I would not mind having another tree) and taking over the property. Once established, they are nearly as hard to kill as a mimosa tree. (I have cut down the same mimosa tree every year for the last five years or so and it keeps coming back lol)

[@JimGarlits]

I've been eating mulberries and begging my mom to make pies since I was six. There was a huge mulberry bush in the open field behind our house when I was growing up. I was surprised to find out several years ago that they aren't actually berries, but rather clusters of tiny fruits around a central stem. They grow everywhere here in Indiana, staining many a country road and multi-use path when the ripened fruit drops onto the road. It is too much even for the birds to clear away. And birds have the perfect relationship to mulberries as the primary seed spreaders. That is why you'll often see mulberry bushes young and old growing up along fence rows and beneath electrical and cable TV lines. The birds eat the fruit, then poop out the seeds everywhere. Thank you, birds! Thank you for spreading the mulberry love... I'm assuming that the mulberry bushes in the video were planted by birds.

[@joshuahoyer1279]

Planted a dwarf overbearing mulberry up here in Oregon last year, and it's amazing how much even it grew in its first season in ground. Started off about 8" high, ended up at about 8' by winter. I did have to cut it back quite a bit, though. Our cold snap followed by a week in the high 60s and 70s caused the bark to pretty much shred all the way around the tree for about the top half of the trunk. But I got a lot of cuttings propagated for backups!

[@Cheezitnator]

Don't worry, it will come back.

[@TUKByV]

Had one in our yard as a child, near Fort Lauderdale. It put out a lot of fruit with no care. I wonder how much more if it were loved.

[@em286]

I love mulberries. Obsessed actually. I have 5 different varieties Lol 🙄

[@katrininsweden2856]

Which one do you like the best?

[@em286]

@@katrininsweden2856 so far the Shangri-la mulberry.

[@katrininsweden2856]

@@em286 Thanks😊 I will be on the lookout for that one then😀

[@CoreenT]

Just bought my first mulberry a couple weeks ago! Well, it's only a 5" tall twig right now, but I have great hopes! Should do well in the hot humid Japanese summer.

[@monnanugent8168]

The first time I ever saw a Mulberry tree was in Tennessee. My twin sister (RIP Donna. I miss you so much) were outside playing in my Uncles yard when we found what we thought was a blackberry tree. We were in heaven. Blackberries on a tree with no thorns. We ate so many of them that our entire faces were purple. We were quite disappointed when my Uncle Jerry told us it was a blackberry and we didn't discover a new tree lol.

[@davidthegood]

Rest in peace, Donna. That story is similar to how I discovered them. My (now wife) Rachel and I lived in the same neighborhood, and she told me about the "blackberry tree" down the road, which we ate tons of fruit from! I was 10 and she was 8.

[@AAHomeGardening]

I have on growing in container - it produces so much

[@bytemuncher1]

I'm in Florida zone 9b and I've grown two different types of dwarf everbearing. The standard dwarf everbearing variety that everyone has and the big box stores sell is total garbage IMO. I threw out 5 healthy one year old trees because they are such weak sauce. Now, at the other end of the spectrum is Thai Dwarf, the Flying Fox Fruits cut. It has GMO-like vigor and pumps out crazy yields of nice tasting large mulberries. Now I have 7 Thai Dwarf mulberry trees in my backyard :)

[@davidthegood]

Yes, that is a much better variety.

[@christinathompson9780]

I have successfully grown a couple of elderberries from cuttings but now I know I can do it with mulberries. Can’t wait to try next year.

[@TheFloridaprepper]

For mine here in SW Florida, I've noticed there are tiny bugs inside the berries if you dunk it in water. Is that something you just don't worry about, or do you have any simple techniques to remove before eating.

[@lukethecat6341]

Probably similar to what is in every blackberry up here in Washington. You can ignore them, or soak the berries in very salty ice water.

[@giojibear1114]

Believe it or not, this tree also grows in Pueblo, Colorado - zone 5b/6a. Pies are delicious! Awesome childhood memories eating these gems😋

[@seedless_sweetie4413]

DAVID THE GOOOD

[@mikhailkalashnikov4599]

I'm in Ky and mulberries are all over the place, like weeds. Another benefit is that whenever you do have to cut them down they burn really not in your wood stove.👍

[@topofthehillgarden6161]

My Mulberry tree is still young but coming soon I will be enjoying Mulberries soon as I use to do as a young boy.

[@slaplapdog]

I love these trees. The wood is supposed to be exceptionally rot resistant and good for burning. I'm about to plant a bunch of cuttings in the same holes with willow cuttings, to create a tiny woodland. I do want to buy some improved varieties as the fruit on my volenteers is tiny.

[@ReapWhatYouSowGardening]

I have a wild mulberry tree at a local park and it is flowering at the moment. Very sweet delicious fruit and this year I might make a jam or preserve out of them

[@theleefamily6446]

I can't believe how much fruit is on those! I have two and so few berries. I don't take care of them either other than pruning early spring.

[@victoriav389]

Mulberry trees grow up here in PA easily too.

[@bowtielife]

Huh!??? I know that sign! I may have to try those. I did have to laugh, though. I am successfully growing blueberries, blackberries and strawberries in my Destin yard, too!😂 But that is just too cool!

[@debrarobinson-tv4fb]

I live in Washington state and black berries are everywhere I love it

[@lindaspellman2108]

Yes! I've never had mulberries, probably because the perception that they would be just like blackberries and THOSE are everywhere whether you want them or not .. so why dedicate the space to a tree?!

[@MississippiHomesteadJourney]

We have them too. That's why I planted over 20 domesticated ones. i figured if the native species did well, the domesticated ones should too.

[@cherimitchell8977]

Mulberries taste different and even better tasting than our WA state blackberries. I wasn’t a mulberry tree so bad! I hope you try some.

[@c.j.rogers2422]

My embarrassingly neglected mulberries are absolutely showing out the last few weeks, completely covered with fruit in varying degrees of maturity. I've never seen such an abundant mulberry crop. They're next to the driveway at my gate in ECF, so I stop at the end of every work day and pick & eat about 50-100 of the ripest. Next day, theres more than the day before. When I say neglected, I mean forgotten cuttings (everbearing black, IIRC) in 3 gallon pots that have grown into the hard, parched sand beneath them, amidst a junge of tithonia, miracle leaf, goethe, and assorted weeds. 8-10' tall, thick trunks, no irrigation, growing amidst the overgrown and deserted disaster my nursery became 2.5 years ago. Once this wave of fruiting finally dies down, which it has yet shown no sign of, and goes into growth mode, I'm taking about 20-30 cuttings to get started for eventual proper planting around the property. I also need to take cuttings from a native red I found growing on a customers property that she didn't even know about. Its a short and far less productive flush of fruit, but I like the idea of having plenty of native stock on the prooerty. Besides, the leaves are much bigger, which will bender lend themselves to becoming livestock feed or culinary ingredients.

[@jeffskinner1226]

I've heard that the developing leaves make a nutritious cooked vegetable when picked at a certain stage in spring, haven't tried it yet but intend to.

[@SCPorchGardner]

Hell yea, I have about 5 different mulberry trees I love.

[@Florida-X]

If anybody knows a location of wild growing Mulberry tree in Ocala area please share. Both of My purchased trees didn’t make it.

[@MississippiHomesteadJourney]

Scrubland Farms has some, that's where I got my Rachel mulberry that DtG discovered. They're only a little north of Ocala.

[@Firevine]

Maaaaaan, I miss Pensacola. Wife and I went several times. We went for our first anniversary, and wanted to go back for our 10th but prices had gone insane. We go to Orange Beach/Gulf Shores or Port Saint Joe now. Anyway! Hey, mulberries, yeah. I've got a mulberry bush, but the dang chickens ate every single leaf off the thing last year. They would not leave the thing alone. No chickens this year, and the bush is recovering nicely. My copy of Minimalist Gardening arrived recently, and I'm looking forward to reading it once I'm done with Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat (Which I highly recommend).

[@davidthegood]

Thank you - I will look that book up. Pensacola is lovely.

[@KK-FL]

I got a cutting off my boyfriend's HUGE mulberry tree, pushed it in some dirt and it is growing leaves now.

[@JavierFernandez01]

i know a tree that's getting a trim. ;)

[@timothy4weigel]

Berry good video

[@justplinkin4809]

The deer would love that here, if they let it grow in the first place. I’m in zone 9a so it still gets well below freezing and most non native trees just die. Thanks for the info, I may try that just to see what happens.

[@Flachickenman]

I got 4! Around gainesville florida, where they are proliferate! I am getting right now a quart per tree daily!

[@teeky-rh9lz]

Love them in north georgia

[@zmblion]

The wild mulberry here in north Missouri are nuts they produce tons of fruit but they spread quick if you don't keep them in check

[@moniatrammell5269]

We have lots of wild elderberry s around me n mulberries Brier berries n plums even peach.

[@jennyjohnson5428]

Morus alba is supposedly the silkworms' preferred food source.

[@jennyjohnson5428]

Look it up: mulberry for sericulture

[@deltorres2100]

Right I’m in Houston and those things grow wild everywhere so I got two of them in my backyard. Wild I got elderberry wild I got low quat..🌱🌱 I have even propagated a few for some friends

[@lorirn714]

I’m in the south. Zone 10b near Miramar Florida. I feel like it’s much tougher to grow than north Florida. I’m still learning from you and others. I only grow my zone specific. 😊

[@davidthegood]

It is awesome there - mango! Pineapples! Jaboticaba! Think tropical. See my South Florida Gardening Survival Guide.

[@doodoobrown3928]

I made a cheese cake with mulberries and it was the best cheesecake ive ever had.

[@comfortablynumb9342]

Organic, except for the light coating of gas and diesel exhaust 😂. Someday I hope I can have a place to plant fruit trees. In Costa Rica preferably.

[@davidthegood]

Haha!

[@annalynn9325]

Me committing the sin of envy in real time. I must get one of those trees

[@adventurecreations3214]

Mulberries are delicious!!!

[@pamamays]

Awesome!! Thanks for the tips Dave!!

[@supereight9221]

My tree grew from a bird doo in another plant's container. Pruned it and grew 7 more

[@tammy2830]

My grandma had a mulberry tree that looked like a tree in northern California. Silk worms loved it!

[@Flachickenman]

Oh, got your book too. Just starting to read

[@nickgardner6340]

We're in Wisconsin & we have a huge one in our front yard, birds love it

[@PlantObsessed]

Zone 5 and the black kind grow here like weeds too. I have let them go in my yard. They get to be large monsters. That we love.

[@tinadedeaux788]

Just picked some off of my tree.They are delicious and little baby's spring up everywhere and very low maintenance. ❤

[@dianatoo940]

Thanks! 👍

[@ausfoodgarden]

Nice timing. I'm in Melbourne Aus which would be more like Sandiego weather I think (Zone 9ish coastal) I've got a mulberry being delivered this weekend along with a few other fruit trees. btw. What's that double-decker bus doing there? I grew up traveling on those things in the UK. Cheers!

[@davidthegood]

That bus advertises a local pub!

[@DDWASH9595]

Planted a twig I found on sale at Lowe’s last fall and boy this tree has grown quite fast and large no fruit this year I’m sure it’ll be some next year

[@briankFF247]

We had a mulberry planted by a bird in our yard, and I thought we hit the jackpot, but then it mysteriously died after the Texas Mega Freeze in 2021. I have since planted a couple, that require little to no maintenance. Other bonus plants we get are wild chilipitin peppers and elderberries that grow along fencelines, obviously planted by birds.

[@Iloveorganicgardening]

Even my wife likes mulberries. We had a huge tree in Pennsylvania where I grew up. Is it well there too

[@MIKEHAWK-sb5bb]

I started my own dwarf mulberry tree from cuttings i got from ebay. biggest trunk is now thigh sized after 3 years.

[@paulettek3682]

We have a black mulberry tree. It had a few low hanging branches where we enjoyed snacks while working in the yard. Unfortunately a nasty snow storm in January 2024 broke those branches off. I don't know if we will have "reachable" fruit this year! We had a mulberry tree in the front, planted by a critter? It never produced fruit, although fully grown. We cit it down because it didn't produce and it was in the wrong place. If it would have fruited, it just would have been trimmed.

[@AuntNutmeg]

Can you prune anything off your tree to get a cutting (or several)? Then you could plant where you want (or start in pots to see which does best first). Keep it short (as David has described in hos grocery row gardening videos) so you can harvest more easily.

[@MississippiHomesteadJourney]

My Rachel mulberry that I bought at the first Scrubfest has mulberries on it this year. All I did was put it into a bigger pot and water it. The leaves are huge compared to my Persian mulberry which is a year older and hasn't produced fruit yet. I've been by that restaurant many times and didn't notice the mulberry trees. Next time I'm over there I'm going to check them out. Do mulberry cuttings do well? hmmmmm

[@GoldenBoy-et6of]

Mulberries and figs are considered the easiest of all fruit trees to propagate from cutting and their cuttings look identical too

[@babetteisinthegarden6920]

YUMMY

[@onefastfreddy]

I just started reading your new book Minimalist Gardening which arrived from Amazon. I look forward to learning more of the "David the Good" way! I have two 2 year old mulberry trees that started as shoot not much bigger than southern pine needles. The larger one has 2 stalks about 6 feet high which I was going to prune into one main central leader until I saw you idea of using 2 cement blocks to spread them apart a little each week. Now that the ends of the branches are fully horizontal, do I just let them send out new branches and leave well enough alone until next year? Thanks and keep up the good work! Also I started beekeeping a few years ago and I am surprised I have not seen any hives at your current place in your videos? Seems like a simple "no brainier" for you to employ a few thousand independent workers to pollinate for you and provide you lots of tasty honey each year just by giving them a wood box and bee frames.

[@davidthegood]

Bees do not stick around for me. It is high effort, though we have a colony in our cottage wall we appreciate

[@onefastfreddy]

@@davidthegood I think maybe if you read my "soon to be written book" targeted just for you titled "Minimalist Beekeeping", you'd be singing a different tune and enjoying lots of free sweet honey! I'll write the book and even come up and help you get started, and then you can write about your successes in the foreword section of the book. If you have bees already in your cottage wall, then your bees are enjoying the free rental space, but not sharing their sweet treats with you. You could even set up a swarm trap to catch some of those bees when half of the hive leaves with the old queen after a new queen takes over the old cottage wall hive. It's even easier than going to the store and buying honey! I've learned a lot from following you over the years, so I'd be happy to return the favor.

[@sgmarr]

I am North of you, in Ontario, Canada. I have a sculptured Mulberry tree. Supposedly you cut the top off every year? My neighbour does hers that way. I simply cut the branches higher, for a Zen look. I get fruits, she does not. Weeping Mulberry they are called.

[@farmingvenusfl]

I just got 2 of them, pretty nice and tall and full of fruit

[@GMFEonetow-ot9ob]

You're very good, I like it😮😮😮😮😅

[@georgegibson707]

Birds eat all my mulberries before they even ripen. Maybe all the highway traffic keeps the pests away with that one, hence its loaded with ripe fruit.

[@JustMe-gx4xt]

How do you get birds form eating all the berries? I had no problems in California but not in Texas. Taxes has so many predators that the tree gets stripped from all fruit before it even ripens. Any suggestions?

[@jpage1331]

I got 2 😊

[@JosiahK555]

grows like a weed in zone 5b, problem is the birds love to eat them too....

[@Kissypooh]

Pensacola

[@suzannematthews5798]

Ive noticed that some mulberries are not very sweet here I have planted Turkish mulberries. I hope they do well.

[@arasdeeps1852]

That's awesome! I need some cuttings from those trees! P.S. I've been meaning to ask: is it okay to plant a food garden on top of a septic tank?

[@betsyoman7173]

They don't grow up here in zone 4 Minnesota. 40 miles south of me sure, tons of them!

[@jvin248]

Mulberry trees are around here in Zone 5. They can transform into weeds all over, so be cautious that you know what you are getting into.

[@JavierFernandez01]

i just started some cuttings. i didn't remove the leaves but have them in a pond to root. should i remove the leaves and just stick them in the dirt?

[@t3dwards13]

What zones do you include in "the south"??? I've just moved from zone 10b in 90745 to zone 6a in 68111. Like you, I'm restarting my agricultural life all over again.

[@davidthegood]

6a is colder, but there is some overlap. Nice chill hours for apples, pears, plums, gooseberries, currants, etc.

[@leomiranda-castro6908]

I love Mulberry with Tequila!

[@crazychickenladyhomestead6918]

But what type specifically? We bought a mulberry from Stark, planted it in the ground in September of 2022, and had a late frost in spring 2023 that killed it. It was a desert variety (Pakistan I think). It was all leafed out and starting to bud. The ones we see at local stores all die before the first frost.

[@davidthegood]

There are many varieties - some more cold-hardy, some very cold-hardy, and some more tropical.

[@vivianking8143]

What about the fumes from the cars being cast off? Just wondering. In Joy

[@davidthegood]

There is pollution everywhere. :(

[@lakeshiamurphy]

That's amazing! I feel silly asking but where can I get seeds or cuttings? I live in Florida but I haven't seen one of these nearby...

[@GoldenBoy-et6of]

Tons of people sell mulberry cuttings online in Florida, fig bid has alot for cheap

[@kma5699]

@@GoldenBoy-et6of do they sell this Thai Dwarf variety?

[@ReidAnderson7]

Easiest tree to grow ever!

[@jeanvandevender1175]

I just watched your video about contaminated manure in garden. I think that may have happened with me. How long before it's safe to plant if it is contaminated. It has already been sitting in a pile for several months before putting on garden.

[@davidthegood]

It can take a year or more once it is in the garden. Tilling and adding charcoal can help. Even with that, we still got some damaged plants two years later.

[@kathyrehe4282]

We had trees in a field behind the house when I was a kid. Just moved back to VA, and saw what looks like what i remember is a mulberry. Is there a look alike that's bad for you?

[@davidthegood]

Nope! Good find.

[@stevieromero9635]

Would it work in the desert southwest?

[@lovebugzz6190]

😎

[@chickens642]

David what has happened to Ice aged Farmer?

[@davidthegood]

Don't know

[@GettingGoshen]

Yeah Those Would have gotten a New home..have Shovel will travel😂😂

[@davidthegood]

I wouldn't steal a tree. Cuttings could be taken, but the tree? You go to hell for that sort of thing.