Hi everyone.  While we are waiting for the main crops of figs, we also have some earlier fruit in our orchard.

The first to ripen every year is the Goumi, followed by Illinois Everbearing Mulberries (actually very good; with a good berry flavor), raspberries, blueberries, and then the figs start ripening.

The Goumi started ripening last week, and I took these pictures this morning.

Best wishes to all.

John

North Georgia Piedmont
Zone 7b

Nice! think i should try growing Goumis too!

Interesting that the IE mulberries are ripe. They were ripening, or maybe still ripening at the end of August last year when I was visiting UC Davis. Very nice fruit. Much sweeter than my Pakistan.

Hi Jon.  We have really enjoyed the Illinois Everbearing, and they do seem to be everbearing.  They have a very heavy set of fruit right now and then more or less throughout the growing season.

I really like the flavor and so do the kids.  I grew up eating wild mulberries around the Great Lakes, but this selected variety is far better in taste.

As I recall, mulberries and figs are related plants.

Hope you are well my friend.

John

Hi Ruben.  We like the Goumis.  They don't taste quite like true cherries, but they are very good when fully ripe.  A little astringent if like too soon, but at full ripeness they have a very pleasant balance of tartness and sweetness.  They are also said to be very healthy.

Best wishes.

John

I have some Arapaho thornless blackberries that are ripening now, which is pretty good because I've not had the chance, or the energy to pot them up.

Also, I just found three raspberries one of the potted raspberry plants.  So far, all the blooms have not made fruit, so I don't know why that was.  Never tried raspberries down here--Just got them a few weeks ago.  The raspberries are Dormans and I have no idea what that means and some people don't think they taste any good, but they're evidently the only raspberries that will fruit down this far South, so I hope to be able to taste them before too long.  They need to be potted up, as well.

There is a large mulberry tree next door that was a volunteer quite a few years ago, now.  It almost looks like the berries are a whitish pink.  I've never liked mulberries, but many people do.  We used to play in a large tree when I was a kid.

The people who had that mulberry tree we played in had these vines that grew on their fence and it had tiny potatoes that grew on it.  I should say they had tiny potato-looking things growing on them, but I don't know what they were and we knew not to eat unidentified things, so for all I know, they were poisonous.

Is a Goumi one of those Miracle Fruits?  I'll have to google it and see.

noss

Nice pictures John, that tree looks to have all the fruit a person or family could handle. Are the good for making preserves or jellies besides eating fresh? I wonder if it would fruit this far south, if it does, I might have to make room for one. It's nice to have other fruit while waiting for the figs. I have a loquat and a mulberry, which have both just finished fruiting.

Noss the light colored mulberry is desirable in one's yard if the fruit is good tasting. I've tasted some that were good and some were bland. The nice thing about white mulberries is that they don't stain you hands, mouth, clothing and the walkways. The one I have growing in my yard is a white mulberry but it makes black berries, huh?  White mulberries were brought to the US to feed silkworms way back when it was thought we could make an industry out of making silk. It didn't work out and the white mulberry spread across the country and is considered an invasive species in some locals. Ninety nine percent of white mulberry trees make black berries. I think I remember reading that they are called white mulberries because of their buds and yes the are a distant cousin to figs.
"gene"

Thanks, John

Goumis sound interesting. Kind of like Acerola cherries.

 @ Jon,

I know what you mean about the IE mulberry. Mine are still developing. According to literature I have read, they should ripen from July thru September. I have a different variety from a cutting I took from a neighbor's tree which flowered in mid March and ripened in mid April.

The goumi looks impressive--really loaded. From the pictures, I'm guessing this is a pretty large tree? Can it be kept pruned to bush size?

Hi Ken.  It's actually easily kept as about a 6 foot bush with a little annual pruning off the top.  They do have some large thorns here and there though.  But I just pull them off as I see them so the kids don't get into them and that works fine.

It's a great plant, especially given the very early fruiting.

And hi Noss, Gene, and Ruben.  As I recall the Goumi comes from Eastern Asia (Russia and China) and is very cold hardy, but I'm not sure how far South it goes.  Some cold hardy plants are just tough in general and do fine in the heat too.  This one is very drought tolerant and it is a nitrogen fixer as well so you don't have to fertilize it.

It makes good jelly and pies.  Not as good as real cherries, but still good, and we haven't had much luck with real cherries here, so this is a good substitute.

I just saw that the first black raspberry is starting to ripen.  We are far enough North we can grow black raspberries very well here, and the red ones too.

Hope everyone is enjoying the great weather.

Best wishes to all.

John

I have seen Goumi plants in apple orchards in middle Tennessee and wondered why.  Goumi berry on google stated that it helped fruit production.  I know bees and butterflies love the blooms but the birds do too.

I picked a couple dozen Nanking Cherries off my bushes this weekend and shared with family and friends.  The robins are on the warpath for them this year, unfortunately.

People like maulberrys? Hey I have a ton free to whom ever shows up with a shovel. Plants range in size from 5-30 foot tall fruit is red almost purple and very sweet about 3/4 -1 inch long

People like good mulberries.  White mulberries seem to grow like weeds around here, and they don't taste so great.

Damn I was hoping some one would cone by and dig them up

I would take them in a heartbeat. But I'm too far away. I love those things.

The white ones are so bland tasting. True Morus Rubra is hard to come by without being crossed with the white from China.  The white are spreading diseases to the reds and killing them off slowly.

I had to resort to getting them from Raintree. Maybe in 5 yrs there will be enough to share with the birds.

Well I have so many I was thinking about raising silk worms for them

damn tent worms.  they're pretty vicious down here on the mulberriesm pecans and black cherry trees.

Get them on my apple tree pretty bad

Get them on my apple tree pretty bad

The_Cell
You are crowding the thread but there does not seem to be any mulberry there.
May be I am misunderstanding your intent of the posts.