My advice is to stick to the Mulberry chow.
I'd love to be able to use chow instead of real leaves, but there's no one distributing the chow where I live, and the costs of importing it would make it really expensive to keep silkworms.
There are many problems encountered when using real leaves.
If you are planning to grow mulberry trees:
1. You should know that they are a very invasive plant, that grows rapidly, and grows into a very large tree that sends out an extensive root system. It drinks up a lot of water, so other plants/grasses are robbed of water, and even some light (due to the large size of the mulberry). This means the positioning of the mulberry tree must be well planned within the garden.
2. Silkworms eat a LOT of leaves. A small tree will not sustain a batch of silkworms for very long. I don't have exact quantities, but about 100 medium to large worms will easily go through between 2-4 shopping bags of leaves in a week. That would strip a small tree bare in no time. So unless you have grown quite a large mulberry tree, forget about it.
If you are planning to collect leaves in the neighbourhood (this is what I have to do):
1. Silkworms eat a LOT of leaves. You will be collecting lots and lots of leaves.
Neighbours don't always appreciate you pruning their trees; passers-by look at you strangely when you jump out of your car and start ripping off leaves from trees on the side of the road; and children report you to the authorities when you whip out your shears and start trimming trees in the park...
2. Fresh leaves don't last very long. I keep mine in the fridge, but after maximum 5 days, they go black an soggy (like old lettuce). If you don't put them in the fridge, they will be dry and stale within about 2-3 days.
When they get soggy, they grow mould quite easily, which is the main reason that freezing hasn't worked well for me. After thawing (even in the microwave), they don't last long before getting mouldy. So to keep a steady supply of fresh leaves, you will be collecting lots and lots of leaves.
Even though they have banned people from planting mulberry trees here too, there is still an abundance of the trees in Johannesburg because it is such an invasive species under the right conditions. The trees spread from garden to garden, and to vacant lots quite easily (it is not surprising to find many smaller trees in close proximity to an older, larger tree).
But despite having so many trees available to me, I still think that mulberry chow would be worth having because of all the time and effort I would save if I didn't have to collect leaves.
