“You should never eat wild mushrooms,” the hospital wrote in a tweet.
Fine, more for me I guess…
If you’re wondering, there is no way to avoid these toxins once you’ve inadvertently picked a lethal mushroom. They are extremely stable. No cooking, freezing, or drying breaks them down.
(Emphasis mine) Simply picking a lethal mushroom and handling it is not dangerous. It can’t hurt you unless you swallow it. Look, I get it these things are truly scary.
FWIW, it was wild mushroom foraging that got me interested in growing them. I’ve been enjoying harvesting shitakes, oysters & 1 small sad lions mane off of logs I inoculated last year, and have in the past grown the same 3 in an indoor controlled environment grow chamber I built. But there is nothing like scoring big foraging!
I haven’t had a good really good foray this year, but here are photos from one last year
Clockwise from top left: Old man of the woods; edible, unidentified Bolete1; did not eat, unidentified Bolete2; did not eat, Chicken of the Woods; edible, Black Trumpets; edible, unidentified gilled mushroom (too big to be an oyster around these parts); did not eat, Lobster Mushrooms; edible, Chanterelles; edible.
2nd picture is of Jack-o-lantern mushrooms; poisonous but very pretty (plus they glow in the dark!) They were growing very near some of the chanterelles I gathered.
All yours, man. I will trust Field and Forest to know the spawn they sell, and grow them myself. I do not know enough to gather them myself and find that I am very untrusting of others to make that distinction considering the consequences. To each their own! (Level of risk tolerance, that is)
next week we should get about 1-2 pounds of habaneros. gonna be hot sauce makin’ time very soon!
when the peas are finished for the season, that bed will get turned, amended with compost, some new organic garden mix and manure tea, before a thorough drench with organic botanical oil mix to minimze icky bugs, then it will rest a few weeks before we turn it over to the winter greens - mustard, tatsoi and “Asian mix” greens from Baker Creek Seed Co.
we’re always growing someting way down here (zone 11).
we grow peppers year-round. this is the first time growing serranos here, but the third batch of habs this year!
there is also one long-suffering Brazilian star pepper that has struggled for months in the shade of the larger fresno red chilies, but has just started to bloom.
This pretty ring popped up in mum and dad’s front lawn. There used to be a silver birch growing around here so they’ve had Amanita muscaria rings there in the past but they’ve long gone. These are pretty though.
I’m absolutely jealous of your growing season! We had to do an “emergency” pick on the 6th as a hard freeze was expected the 7th (and came to pass). We made dill pickled green tomatoes and green tomato relish with the unripe tomatoes over the weekend, and I have two grocery bags full of hot peppers to clean, sort and pickle or freeze yet this week. That’s the end of the season in zone 5/6. We’ll make hot sauce and do something with our cherries and strawberries over the winter.
Got a good frost here that killed back the yacon, so brought in the tubers to make chips and store the reproductive roots for next year. Wanted to pick the persimmons, but still way to tannic. Brought in the medlars to start bletting. My wife says this is the season I bring in the weird stuff.
Oh, it’s weird stuff. “Hey, here is this weird brown stone-hard thing that looks like a dog’s asshole. Let’s let it rot for a while then eat it! Yeah, that’s the ticket!” Whoever was the first to figure this out must have been very hungry. (Although I am told you can just leave them hang on the tree to blet and not worry too much, but this was the first year it produced, so I wasn’t leaving it to chance.)
Finally got my garlic planted. A bit late because I was travelling for a few weeks. Three varieties. I take a photo because the labels usually wear off over winter.
And i think the gardens have given about all they have for this year. Already planning for future versions, although with moving, remodeling and etc, not really planning on doing much with it next year. Which is ok, in a way. There are parts that i never got back under control after my summer of cancer, and that was 4 years ago. So next year, no annuals. Just looking to get everything back to a good, producrive state so we can go nuts (literally, planted pecans, chestnuts (got 1 chestnut this year!) almonds and walnuts. ) in 2024.
I’m wondering if thinly slicing them and then drying them, maybe after soaking in a simple syrup, to be used as garnish on other foods might not be a good use for them.
