On 22/10/2015 7:49 PM, Janet wrote:
In article ,
says...

On 20/10/2015 6:20 PM, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 20 Oct 2015 10:49:44 +1100, Fran Farmer
wrote:

I'm in the southern hemisphere and enjoying a glorious Spring. For the
first time, my mulberry his covered with tiny fruit.

I've never managed to get a crop from this tree before so can anyone
give me any advice in how I can go from the tiny forming fruit through
to bringing home a mother lode of fruit at harvest time? It's a black
mulberry just in case that is important.

I only know a very few things about mulberry. Black mulberry does take
quite a few years to reach fruiting age, but now it's started it
should be OK in years to come.

That makes sense given the age of this tree,

The juice of the fruit from black
mulberry is the most staining of all staining things. It stains your
hands, your clothes, and if you get fallen fruit stuck to the soles of
your shoes, it stains everything you tread on, like carpets. But the
fruit is delicious. Silkworms only eat leaves of white mulberry, not
black mulberry. Mulberry trees were imported into the UK in the 17th
century, with the intention of producing silk to compete with silk
imported from China. But they imported black mulberry, the silk-worms
didn't thrive, and the scheme was a failure.

Cultivation notes here https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=642
and more stuff here http://tinyurl.com/nwvxoj8

Thanks for the links Chris - they seem to be useful. And just for info,
although I too have read that silkworms will only eat white mulberry
leaves, it's not true. I raised a batch of silkworms through all stages
from eggs to death and then to rehatching the following year on the
leaves of my black mulberry. I lost that next lot when house sitter
used fly spray in the house after I'd told her specifically not to do so.

As a child I was given a paper of silkworm eggs to hatch, and
(with no access to mulberry) they happily thrived on privet leaves.

That's interesting. I hadn't heard of them eating privet leaves. I
have been told tat they will eat oak leaves and lettuce but when I tried
lettuce, mine left them alone and only ate the mulberry leaves.

I lost interest before they made coccoons. Somewhere in darkest
Lancashire, feral silkworms are gobbling up the privet hedges.

:-)) Well worth a trip back there to pick some up. I found them to be
quite riveting to watch and their little faces are as cute as buttons.
I should try to source some more now that it's spring here.