Favorite Plants: Illinois Everbearing Mulberry
Of all the types of trees planted at Larrapin, the Illinois Everbearing Mulberry is one of the favorites. About three autumns back, I ordered two from Starkes Brothers Nursery in Missouri and planted them in the far chicken paddock. It was one of those permaculture “stacking” ideas: shade in the pasture, snacks for the chickens who *love* the wine-colored berries that fall easily when ripe, valuable food for songbirds and potential distraction from other fruit, possible future pies for the farmers, and the clean-up services of the chickens for the same berries which stain wildly if tracked in the house. The trees have accomplished all this already—except the pies—and it looks like this year could even be the pie year.
They grew quickly that first year they were planted. But when the garden had to be relocated to the middle paddock to escape the deer invasion, the two bushy trees were in a bad spot to cast too much shade. So against all tree growing wisdom, Mendy and I dug them up the following fall, cut them back drastically, and replanted in the northern chicken paddock where they would provide shade, but to the chickens, not the garden. Truth be told, I didn’t expect them to live and planned to reorder their replacements that next year. But with faithful and attentive watering to make up for their abrupt relocation, they made it.
This third spring, they are covered far and wide with green berries (above). There is just no comparison with the amount and size of the named mulberry cultivars and the wild ones, though the latter are still important to wildlife. On this tree a few berries are getting ripe already. I can’t show you those because I ate them. 🙂
Really, I take breaks from gardening, so sit on the folding chair in their shade while leisurely scanning for ripe berries and snack away. Any I drop, or accidentally knock off, are instantly devoured by the hens hanging about for just that possibility. Last summer, in the mornings I’d let out the hen girls and they would jog, chicken-run style and bloomers a-waving, to the trees to eat the berries that fell overnight. Needless to say, there aren’t any left to get tracked in the house…which normally is a major consideration when planning where to plant a mulberry tree. I can’t think of a better tree for a chicken yard.
When many berries get ripe, I hope to use the trick I learned from the blog over at Midwest Permaculture and put out a few clean sheets on the ground under the trees and shake. (Obviously, the chickens will be locked up during this event or else quite a rodeo would ensue…) Until then, the chickens lounge in the deep shade of the bushy trees—which also keep their water buckets cool…and then I dump the water buckets to give the trees some extra water (more stacking!!), snack on a few more berries and get back to gardening.
What are the favorite trees you have planted or want to plant? Please share your thoughts on the Facebook page!
—A Larrapin Garden. Please subscribe to get the posts by email most Wednesdays. You can also get bonus links, giveaways and recipes by “liking” the Facebook page or following on Twitter. And if you are in the Fayetteville, Arkansas area, you can share the herb garden’s bounty via Green Fork Farmers Market—an online & drop-by market on Wednesdays featuring all naturally-grown products.
Read MoreBees in January…er, what?
Wait, it goes beyond blooms because there’s one of the golden girls having a great time with those early blooms!
A flower and a bee: the perfect combination.
While I’m happy to see the bees, this too-warm trickery winter can be treacherous for them. The warm weather lures them out to fly around and burn up too much energy when there’s very little for them to find to eat. Plus, they may start raising young bees too early, only to have bad loss when the weather snaps back to real winter, which is more likely then not. So I hope they will sense somehow, that this warm weather is fickle and not to be trusted….
…unlike Hearld the metal chicken, which can be trusted to keep an eye on things, even a flowering quince blooming a couple of months too early.
—A Larrapin Garden. Posts most wednesdays & weekends. Please subscribe to get the posts in one weekly email. You can also get bonus links, giveaways and recipes by “liking” our Facebook page or following on Twitter.
Dig In Food & Farming Festival
Are you in the Northwest Arkansas region? Please join us for the 2nd annual Dig In! on March 2nd & 3rd. It’s going to be great fun with films, an info-fair, free seed swap, and classes on gardening, backyard chickens and more. Please check out the website at www.diginfestival.com for more info and sign up for email updates there!
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Happy Accident in the Weedy Pasture…
Sometimes, things get away from you before you can weedeat! Take this tiny pasture which has thin rocky soil and gets half shady in the fall. I’ve had no luck in growing anything I wanted to grow in it. I intended to knock back the weeds all summer, which at the time were about knee-high, with generic-looking green stalks. (Let me note here, that we never needed a weedeater when we had goats!)
Then the brush got chest high and I dreaded the nightmare weedeating job and put it off longer because now it would involve the gasoline weedeater vs. the lightweight electric. But it was funny to let the chickens run around in their own personal chicken maze, completely invisible once they entered, and scratch around to their hearts’ content. And by then it was far too large for even a herd of biddies to hurt.. Finally, it got so close to first frost that I decided to let winter take it all down….sigh of relief.
But before that happened, everything bloomed. WOW! I’m not sure what these little white aster-like weeds are (anyone?) but the flowers cover the pasture now. And I have never seen so many pollinators in one place at one time! There have been native bees, butterflies, flower flies, and of course the Larrapin honeybees have been all over it. Meanwhile, all kinds of songbirds are hanging around the perimeter have a feast on all the various bugs. (Stay away from the bees you guys!)
You can stand in the middle of it be surrounded by a lively buzz and every flower, I mean every one, has somebody enjoying it. Amazing! My bee mentor told me how much-loved this wildflower is (as one of the last nectar sources of the year) because light frosts actually make the plant produce more nectar.
I’m so very glad I procrastinated this time. Now I have a whole different outlook on this particular “weed.” While I’m a farmer at heart, at the same time, I love what nature does to the land when the farmer steps back a bit and let’s the real master-gardener show me how it’s done! Hope you all are enjoying this beautiful Ozark fall.
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Read MoreWoodpeckers O’Plenty: Suet Feeders
Yellow-Bellied Woodpecker
Here at Larrapin we’ve kept suet feeders going every winter and spring for years now. The result is a cornucopia of woodpeckers! Since the feeders are outside the kitchen window, they provide lots of entertainment while doing dishes. Some, like the red-belly woodpecker above, are very bold and can be easily photographed while I lean over the sink.
Pine Creeper...ok, his rump anyway
Others are notoriously difficult to catch on film, like the Pine Creeper above. Not only does he blend with the pine tree bark, he is very, very fast and always in motion. Usually he’s creeping around eating the bits of suet the nuthatch stashes behind the pine bark!
Female Downy Woodpecker, Our darling...
Isn’t she sweet! In this photo above she discovered the suet cage door had been left open and couldn’t believe her luck! Thankfully we latched the feeder before the suet block fell out. If not, at least one of our weiner dogs would have mysteriously gained five pounds overnight and then pooped birdseed for a week!
My special darling, the Carolina Wren
All kinds of birds take turns at the blocks, like the Carolina Wrens.
Some are a bit piggish at the suet...
These guys above just eat and eat! I believe I’ve read that ‘eating like a bird’ translates to eating about half your body weight every day or so…
Pine Creeper
There he is again, the flash that is the Pine Creeper. Quick, snap the picture!! OK, so it’s a little blurry, but he’s blurry even in real life because he’s always moving so fast.
Traffic Jam
Everyone wants the suet block for their own. But sometimes if you are a little junco you have to just jump on a grab a bite because Big Mr. Piggish could be here all day! Nevermind that he’s staring you down…
There are only two woodpeckers that do not show up on the suet blocks: Flickers and Pileated. (Although the Flicker has been seen on the ground under the suet feeder picking up chips that fell down…) Next week I’ll post what I saw a whole family of FIVE flickers happily eating at Larrapin. Some people call it a ‘trash tree’ but after watching the birds’ delight, I never will!
—A Larrapin Garden www.larrapin.us
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