Invasive Plants

I was reading recently about invasive plants and trees that seem to just pop up without help from us.  One such tree is the mulberry tree, especially in our area.  My first encounter with a mulberry tree was at my first job after moving to the area. Outside on the side of the building there was a nice mulberry tree growing between our building and the next.  Being the adventurous person I am I decided to try some of the berries, being pretty sure I knew what it might be.  I was told by coworkers and eventually my wife after I told her about it that I really shouldn't eat berries unless I know what it is. I'm not dead and now I'm sure I was right about the identification.

Mulberries are one of the least appreciated trees out there.  If you are fortunate enough to have some of these in your area you can usually wild harvest these berries around now by either hand picking the berries or spreading out a sheet and shaking the tree until you have enough berries.  Either way you will want to remove any stems and such and afterward soak in water to get any bugs out. In my experience there are usually a lot of little bugs in the cracks, not harmful to eat in case you don't get them all though.

You can either eat them by themselves or like all berries add them to yogurt or bake them into a pie. If you have a favorite way to eat them let us know.