I assume that over time the top of the “table” slowly increases in height, or do you strive to hold the line completely and keep the same height over time?
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Thank you. I’m going to try this.
It will be tricky with one of my trees–a multigrafted alba with 10 different varieties. Buluklu, Saharanpur Local, Pakistan, Red Himalayan and DMOR 9 shot straight up while Maui, 4 Seasons, Noir de Spain, Thai Dwarf, and Maple Leaf are a little more bushy. The tree looks like it’s been made from spare parts.
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With my gerardi and silk hope… deer remove every leaf up to about 4 ft.
Deer in my orchard on a regular basis is a fact here. They do very little damage to most fruit trees… but will eat every mulberry leaf they can easily get.
I have been pushing mine to grow single trunk to 4 ft and then allow them to branch out as bushy as they want.
So my table height has to be a little above 4 ft.
Would that not be true for anyone that has deer pressure… and does not have their mulberries protected by perhaps some expensive tall fencing ?
At exactly what height you set your table… has to depend on if you have deer fenced out or not … right ?
TNHunter
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Right. I think it would require renewal cuts at some point down the road to maintain the base structure. If a leader gets to dominant it would have to go.
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Right. We’re fenced in. I don’t think this would work unless they’re protected from deer browsing. But because we prune them so low to the ground, slugs are a problem in the spring! They really loved this Kokuso…
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They completely killed two of my nigras this spring, which had both been grafted one year earlier and couldn’t recover from slug defoliation.
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Slugs… yuck.
With mine branching out around 4 ft high… at least I have not had any slug problems.
Birds love them… get out there just after daylight in the mornings to get the ripe ones before the birds do.
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Those are some massive slugs you get over there! Mine are like 20% of that size, but still ruined many grafts.
If it’s arion vulgaris, then you’d better employ all available means of extermination before you drown in them.
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There are many dozens of native species of slugs and snails here in the PNW, as well as some introduced ones. We’re drowning in slugs here no matter what we do. Here’s a poster from our state to the south, but we have at least as many species here:
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we have those big slugs and some smaller ones here. since I’ve had more mixed plantings their numbers have gone down over the years. i thinks its because i have more wildlife in my yard as my trees and bushes have matured. lots of crows to eat them. June bug grubs have gone down also from my family of skunks living under the shed that dig and eat them.
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We have a lot of native ones, even an endemic blue one, but that invasive species is something else. 12 years ago, I got a flock of Indian Runner ducks because I couldn’t grow any veg. We’ve had a couple very mild winters and this spring has been a slug plague. Even the ducks were fed up.
its a little expensive but i used to put copper tape all around my vegetables. its creates a weak current and they wont cross it. got it from a hardware store and its reusable. since i eliminated most grass in the rows of my food forest and with a flock of crows constantly in there, i rarely see slugs anymore. if they try to cross my grass from the adjacent field, they get picked off. i used to have some big ones 3in. long. i don’t know if they were invasive but they sure did alot of damage.
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I’d have to drop a truck of copper shavings on my garden. Plus I have very heavy soil so I grow a lot of stuff in Hugelkultur beds and those bastards dig into those.
These were my attempsts at kohlrabi. Otherwise, I’ve had to keep my seedlings and cuttings on a bench Any mulberry cuttings in the groud had buds munched off.
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Exactly. We put some loose mesh around the base of the trunk and it seemed to help. Here’s a link to what we used…
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OMG this is nightmare territory for me 
The worst thing is that you can actually hear them chewing. And they scream when I skewer them for duck feed… Somebody should make it into a movie. Wait, they already have: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW86lcZJoUs
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I have two Gerardis; one fruited, the other has not, but boy are they tasty. I’d never had a mulberry before tasting my own this summer and I’d agree that they did taste as good or better than a blackberry without having to deal with canes and thorns etc. This year, I only got maybe a grand total of 25 berries, but their size was impressive. I also got some dwarf everbearing, and the few I saw were tiny–like the size of my pinky nail. I think I will leave those as the bird decoys, but I will definitely protect the Gerardis. Here’s a question; can I expect that the second bush, which is actually bigger than the one that fruited, to fruit or could it be a male/female thing and assume that it may never fruit? They have been in their current spot for two or three years now and were moved after a year in another spot out front. I had to move them because of worries about the roots, the driveway, sidewalk and septic…
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Barb… I grafted my gerardi to a 3 inch white mulberry stump. It grew that much first season.
It did produce some fruit that first year but it did not have much flavor. No doubt it was focused on growing shoots and leaves.
Year two it fruited … and it had a nice fruity flavor with some sweetness… that got better the second month of fruiting… but was not complex and had no tartness…
Year 3 this year… very nice complex fruity flavor that was tart and sweet… as good as any blackberry I have ever had.
I wonder if it will improve even more next year.
That has been my experience so far with gerardi.
TNHunter
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That’s impressive! The dwarf everbearing is already about 15’ tall and I did really prune it to about four feet tall this past winter. I’ve never done any kind of grafting, but you’re making me wonder whether I could cut the “Dwarf Everbearing” and graft some Gerardi to it. I would love to have four bushes of such deliciousness instead of just one or two. I can’t wait to have enough to make some wine with!
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