The easy way to pick mulberries...

Mulberries are a special treat to me. I remember summers spent cutting my father's lawn. As I passed by his mulberry trees, I would stop and pick an handful of the purple berries. Those were the summers when all I could think about were the trees. I studied them every night, pouring over Peterson Field Guides, cross referencing and teasing out new information. There are two species in America (Red and White Mulberry). The fruits are nutritious when ripe, but hallucinagenic and poisonous when green. The young shoots are a pot vegtable.

A few large trees grow by my appartment, boardering a water culvert that fills in the rain. Susan and I took out a large tarp today, spread it under the branches, then shook the tree vigorously. In fact, I climbed up 20 feet to shake the branches even harder. The berries landed on the tarp along with lots of midden (pieces of branches, leaves, etc.). We gathered up the berries into a large bowl, then took them inside and dumped them into a sink filled with water. The berries floated to the top, and we picked them out clean. A co-worker tells me that adding a can of ginger ale or Seven Up aids in the sorting process,  but could nto elaborate on exactly how. We got about two quarts of the berries and put them in the freezer for later use.