Mulberry

My friend, Elicia, gave me a stem cutting of her mulberry bush so that I could also propagate it. This plant is very easy to plant. I just placed the stem into a pot of soil and then the branches started to sprout new shoots and leaves. With some organic fertilizer added from time to time, within a short duration, it has shoot up to the height of the roof of my porch. I was told that I should trim the fast-growing branches often to keep the bush low and produce more fruits. However, the tall branches are offering cool shade to my lower growing plant, so I leave it to grow.

We dry the leaves and usually make tea out of it. The tea tastes as good as our usual jasmine tea, of course, without the fragrant of jasmine. The tea made of mulberry leaves is believe to lower cholesterol level. Thus, I would collect these leaves, dried them and bring them for my brothers back in my hometown in Melaka. Both of them have high cholesterol problem.

My close friend whose daughter's nose always bleed, have a remedy for this. She will boil the fresh mulberry leaves with water and feed it to her daughter. This remedy works effectively for her toddler.

As for the fruit, I like eating them fresh. The berries should only be plucked when it has turned dark. Then it will be sweet, or sometimes sourish-sweet. The unripe fruit is very sour.

A well-known home caterer, Debbie Teoh, who always share her recipes in the Flavour magazine, has several bushes of mulberry in her garden. She usually collect the mulberries and store them in the freezer. As the harvest is small, she will gather the berries in batches until she has enough to make mulberry jam. I have very little harvest. Probably I should add the correct type of fertilizer to encourage more fruits.

If you want to know more ways to use the mulberry plant, read about it from this article that I have scanned from the Flavours magazine, issue July - August 2003. The recipes are by Debbie Teoh. Click on the photo to link to the article scanned in bigger format.