Berries Begin

The heat is making a lot of berries ripen very quickly. If you belong to a C.S.A., you might be getting urgent calls to come pick strawberries. Today, we answered that call, and picked as many no-spray strawberries as we could stuff into our mouths, plus some to take home for later. We paused on Main St. in New Paltz to eat some already ripe mulberries, too, off the tree squeezed between the falafel place and the tie-dye incense place.
The mulberries by my house are on the verge of ripening, too: the birds, the squirrels, and I are all waiting eagerly.

If you don't have mulberries in your yard, some good, public picking trees are these: Beekman St. (on the way to the train station) over parking spots #565 and #556. These two trees have branches that hang low over the road, so it's easy to reach the fruit. If you're by the sloop club, check to see if the two June berry trees by the walkway have ripe berries yet, or harvest from the mulberry tree by the tracks, about 10 parking spaces to the left of the entrance to the tracks.

If you're up for a walk, some trees on the way to the old brick factory on Dennings Points have the biggest mulberries I've ever seen.

Happy foraging, and happy eating. Here's hoping you don't get berry juice on your clothes, like me.