Back from Vacation
Well, backyard gardening had to end sometime. September is when Sandy and I begin our transition from all things gardening to all things fungi. Truth be told, we’ve actually been out scavenging for mushrooms a few times already in August. However, before I go there, I want to introduce this year’s tomato winners. The first place trophy goes to Alice’s Dream. It’s not the sweetest tomato of the group but it has a nice fruity flavor, stupendous yet quite variable color patterns and can get close to a pound in weight. Queen of the Night came in second with its own interesting color patterns and good juice and flavor profile. It’s more of a medium sized tomato, great for salads or sliced up on sandwiches. Both of these will be on our “grow them again” list for next year’s gardening season.
We’ve also expanded our Wine Cap mushroom (Stropharia rugoso-annulata) inoculations to include all of our raised garden beds as well as around our fruit trees. Each fruit tree is now surrounded by a good sized ring of chopped bedding straw which is then covered using a blend of hardwood and conifer wood chips. Inoculating our garden beds with Wine Cap spawn has greatly improved our soil’s structure. As its mycelium slowly breaks down organic matter, beneficial nutrients and humic acid are released into the soil. Using Wine Cap spawn has also greatly improved the growth and fruit set of the one persimmon tree we originally experimented with. If you want to harvest some of these edible beauties, it’s recommended to pick them in their button stage for best flavor. Our objective was to let these Wine Caps sporulate so they can potentially establish new colonies in other areas of our backyard. Better plant growth and edible mushrooms, what could be better.
In late August Sandy and I spent the day at the coast to escape Eugene’s predicted 100+ degree temperature. While hiking some of the coastal trails we spotted a number of mushroom species. Most of the mushrooms we encountered consisted of the usual early to fruit standards like Russulas, Amanitas, and Cortinarius. Happily, we also found a few Lobster mushrooms as well as a few Chanterelles. This was by no means a bonanza find like you might see in late September or October after weeks of steady rainfall, but who’s complaining. While finding them was mostly hit or miss it is actually the kind of mushroom hunting we have really come to enjoy. It’s fun to find a goldmine of your favorite mushroom in one spot but it’s even more satisfying when you really need to hunt around for them. We believe in the adage of “The greater the challenge, the greater the reward”.
Sandy took these pictures showing a few of the Chanterelles we did find on one of our hikes. I know exactly what you’re thinking, these Chanterelles display the obvious symptoms of suffering from peyronie’s disease. I thought the same thing myself until I realized we pulled them out of a sloped area of the ground. Since mushrooms know which way is up, they simply curved their stems after emerging from the duff to correctly orientate their cap. It was certainly a clever move on their part but sadly did not inspire us not to pick them.
We also found a few very nice Lobster mushrooms. As we have come to expect from this mushroom, most were partially buried under the duff. Fortunately, the one we decided to keep was nicely poised well above the ground, which made it uncharacteristically clean. If you’ve ever tried to get all the dirt out of every nook and cranny of a buried and distorted looking Lobster mushroom you can well appreciate the joy in finding one as large and clean as the one we found. The other benefit of finding early season lobster mushrooms is they seem to be less likely to be hosting fungus gnat larvae. For some people these little creatures can manifest a very disagreeable reaction as to its culinary worth, even if the mushroom is still in perfectly good eating condition.
In plain English, fungus gnat larvae can make mushrooms look very repulsive and unappetizing. The one we brought home was happily void of any such occupants so we didn’t have to make that take it or leave it decision. This one will once again be turned into Lobster mushroom bacon as I continue to try and perfect our simulated bacon recipe.
On a final note of considerable interest to anxious mushroom hunters, Sandy saw this posting from September 3rd on Linda Gilpin’s Facebook page. Linda is a member of the Central Oregon Mushroom Club in Bend. Linda wrote “Chanterelle season!! 12 lbs. in 50 minutes. and so clean! I am thrilled they opened the closed roads off Santiam Pass, 3400 feet.” If that doesn’t get you excited you may want to check your pulse to make certain you still have one. However, if it was racing before you read this, you may want to get that checked.
Stay safe, enjoy a day in the woods and happy Mushrooming.
Ron
