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karmicdragonflyI expanded my urban foraging to a nearby park. My biggest fear about going outside my own yard was that I wondered if the city might be spraying some sort of pesticide for mosquito control.
But as I thought about it:
So, I think I'm safe on that account.
So off to the park I went to pick some Mulberries since they are in season right now.
I actually have a Mulberry out back of my house (hence the sub-title of this journal), but it is very old and no longer seems to bear any fruit. It did bear some fruit when I first moved in, but I have not seen any any in recent years.
The ones I picked at the park were on the tree itself, so I suspect they are not completely ripe. And as you can see below, the stems came off with the berries -- another sign of incomplete ripeness. I think with a Mulberry on the property, you could spread a tarp on the ground and let the berries fall naturally off the tree.
In any event, I washed the berries and then used some scissors to trim off the stems. And I put a little sugar on them to eat.
There are several Mulberry trees at the park. They are pretty easy to identify -- of course, by the fruit, but also by the leaves and because their branches naturally sort of drape down towards the ground.
Picking Mulberries is a messy business -- your hands get stained purple. It reminded me of helping my grandmother pick blackberries when I was little. By the way, the park is full of blackberries as well.
But as I thought about it:
- I go to the park all the time, and I have never seen the city spraying anything.
- If the park had been sprayed, unless the poison is systemic, I would expect it to wash off with the rain. And we had a lot of rain last night and earlier this week.
- There's a large bird population at the park and lots of bugs, so I just don't think there has been any spraying.
- I only foraged a small amount of food, so even if there were to be systemic pesticide, I'd only get a small dose.
So, I think I'm safe on that account.
So off to the park I went to pick some Mulberries since they are in season right now.
I actually have a Mulberry out back of my house (hence the sub-title of this journal), but it is very old and no longer seems to bear any fruit. It did bear some fruit when I first moved in, but I have not seen any any in recent years.
The ones I picked at the park were on the tree itself, so I suspect they are not completely ripe. And as you can see below, the stems came off with the berries -- another sign of incomplete ripeness. I think with a Mulberry on the property, you could spread a tarp on the ground and let the berries fall naturally off the tree.
In any event, I washed the berries and then used some scissors to trim off the stems. And I put a little sugar on them to eat.
There are several Mulberry trees at the park. They are pretty easy to identify -- of course, by the fruit, but also by the leaves and because their branches naturally sort of drape down towards the ground.
Picking Mulberries is a messy business -- your hands get stained purple. It reminded me of helping my grandmother pick blackberries when I was little. By the way, the park is full of blackberries as well.