Conditions and Harvest
Black Mulberry prefers full sun/part shade. They are cold hardy and low maintenance. They don’t need much fertiliser but benefit from a nitrogen fixing ground cover. Can tolerate drought as well as heavy soils.
Self-fertile. Fruit usually ripens late spring into summer. The fruit can ripen over many weeks or even a few months making them great where an extended harvest is preferable.
Uses and Food Forest Information
The fruit can be eaten raw or cooked but don’t keep well so are rarely sold commercially.
Black Mulberry is highly useful as stock food with the leaves being highly palatable for stock and the pollarding ability making them useful as a tree fodder species. Chickens also love the berries.
Their fast growth habit early in life makes them a great initial crop in your food forest. The ability to prune them into various layers and use them for both fruit and leaf production means they can fit various niches within your system.
Both the leaves and fruit are beloved by kereru and they are known to strip even large trees of both. If this becomes an issue, trees can either be pruned to a size they can be protected by nets, or simply plant so many trees that they can’t keep up!
