Mushrooms!

[Snufkin]

Just picked my first Fairy Ring Champignons of the year . Only a handful but more are sure to follow. When they really start popping up I'm going to get serious about drying them as I didn't do enough to tide me over last year.
Anyone else feel it's just not on to buy mushrooms?

 

[Hellz]

I'd love to pick my own mushrooms, I'm just a touch nervous

There is a guy in a village not to far away who organises 'fungus forrays' I'm going to go on the next one so that I'm fairly confident whats what...

Hellz

 

[Snufkin]

I'd love to pick my own mushrooms, I'm just a touch nervous

There is a guy in a village not to far away who organises 'fungus forrays' I'm going to go on the next one so that I'm fairly confident whats what...

Hellz

I know what you mean. I avoided Fairy Ring Champignons for years as there is a slightly similar fungi that is deadly. I was sure I had positively IDed the champignons but as I had never come across the deadly one I couldn't compare.
Good idea to get out with someone who knows there stuff, I do all my learning from books and live by the motto "when in doubt chuck it out."

 

[george]

The first of the chanterelles are showing up here already! Earliest I can remember them!

George

 

[Snufkin]

The first of the chanterelles are showing up here already! Earliest I can remember them!

George

Never found a chanterelle yet, it's my holy grail fungus.

 

[george]

Never found a chanterelle yet, it's my holy grail fungus.

They're pretty common round here Snufkin, by the end of the season I'm usually pretty fed up with them!

The first ones of the year are always a treat though.

My favourite mushroom has to be Hydnum Repandum - the hedgehog mushroom. They don't appear for another 3 or 4 months though, so I'll have to wait

George

 

[Ajali]

I found at least four sites of chanterelles round where i live last year - i have two dogs so i end up walking for miles usually. In one patch they were so abundant that the guy i was hunting them with nearly didn't believe they were chanterelles! It was my first time properly mushroom hunting as well - i've had a passive interest for years but last autumn it blossomed into a fully fledged obsession!
Hehe, the ones i really want to find but haven't ever are Cauliflower fungus, Chicken of the Woods, Giant Puffball and of course, the elusive Morels.

Woah, ok, end of my first post, i'm a new memeber, discovered the site and promptly joined about half an hour ago...i had no idea there were so many people out there with similar 'freakish' (as i have been so eloquently named) interests as myself!
Yours,
Ajali
XOX

 

[Tony]

Welcome to bcuk, it's good to have you Yep, there's quite a few on here that are interested in the edible side of being out doors, it sounds like you'll be able to share some good foraging stories

 

[Ajali]

Last year i found two really good Hedgehog mushrooms.....but i was young and inexperianced and also found a strange, medium sized but quite pretty mushroom with a ring round its stem, and held them in the same hand as i walked the remaining two miles home, put them on the kitchen table, and said, right, i'm going to identify this! (of course, i'd already worked out the Hedgehog mushroom on account of its spines!) so for ten minutes i sat flicking through about 3 guide books, before i found the one i'd bought home...yes, white stem, with a ring, remains of an egg, olive-green cap, white gills....."Oh Sh!t it's a DEATHCAP!) Needless to say, i panicked enough to bin the lot, (i wasn't going to risk eating ANYTHING that had come into contact with a Deathcap as i read that the spores are also poisonous! So...no Hedgehog mushrooms for me....but i memorised where they grew and shall be on the lookout, and of course a fascinated but respectful (safe!) distance from any deathcap!

Ajali
XOX

 

[Ajali]

Thanx, lol - got so excited i posted my second reply before realsiing i had a welcome from a member! Hehehe, thanks! I have a few stories, but am feeling woefully inadequet when comparing them to some of the others on this site (maggots and par-boiled duck foetus?!)
I did, however, manage to fall out of a tree last week whilst gathering Jew's Ears....well, fall isn't really the right word....'sandpapered' is more of an adequet description, with missing chunks of skin on arms and shins to attest to it!
Ajali
XOX

 

[Snufkin]

Hehe, the ones i really want to find but haven't ever are Cauliflower fungus, Chicken of the Woods, Giant Puffball and of course, the elusive Morels.
Yours,
Ajali
XOX

Welcome to the site . I too am still on the lookout for morels with no success yet. I got loads of caulis last year and they are seriously good eating . Also had a giant puffball, and, I have to say I found it to be a little bland tasting. A bit like tofu. But it's still a good find and a great food source from a bushcraft point of view.

 

[george]

Well I've just been out strimmng in the garden and decided to clear a bit of ground I haven't used for a while. I cut back all the dockens and brambles and uncovered the site where I use my pole lathe ( I haven't used it since last spring) Growing all over the chopping block I had left there was a huge bunch of oyster mushrooms!

I've harvested some and then covered the block with a stack of half rotten birch logs in the hope that they will become inoculated with the spores and start fruiting too.

Oyster mushrooms for dinner tonight.

George

 

[Toddy]

Well I've just been out strimmng in the garden and decided to clear a bit of ground I haven't used for a while. I cut back all the dockens and brambles and uncovered the site where I use my pole lathe ( I haven't used it since last spring) Growing all over the chopping block I had left there was a huge bunch of oyster mushrooms!

I've harvested some and then covered the block with a stack of half rotten birch logs in the hope that they will become inoculated with the spores and start fruiting too.

Oyster mushrooms for dinner tonight.

George

Lucky sod! Does it work easily this innoculation? All I've got just now are false chanterelles...which are actually quite tasty here....and jew's ear, which I've snipped and dried for cooking up later.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Ed]

All I've got just now are false chanterelles...which are actually quite tasty here

Be careful as there are a couple of toxic species which can be mistaken for chanterelles...... make sure you have your id right


Ed

 

[Marts]

London is still dry as a bone and fungi are really taking their time this spring - I've had a few Chicken of the woods and a few ink caps but that is it. St George's seemed to miss us entirely this year. I'm hoping for better conditions for the ceps later on, but It's always a battle on London's commons because the Eurpean delis send out staff to harvest as much as they can to sell in their shops - very against the spirit of the thing....

 

[george]

Lucky sod! Does it work easily this innoculation? All I've got just now are false chanterelles...which are actually quite tasty here....and jew's ear, which I've snipped and dried for cooking up later.

cheers,
Toddy

From what I understand Toddy, if conditions are right when the remaining mushrooms release their spores then they should take on the birch logs. They've got to be pretty rotten though to let the spores reach the right conditions to take. I could also break off part of the stump with some of the mycelium in it and push it in to holes in the logs. It will take a year or 2 before I know if it's worked or not.

You can buy oyster and shiitake mushroom spawn in a kind of peaty base - you drill holes in old logs, stuff them with the spore/peat mix and then stack the logs in a damp shady place to rot. They fruit for some time and then you have to do it again. I believe thats what a bunch of the commercial growers do with some of the more "exotic" species.

Have a look here http://www.mycosource.com/commcult.htm

George

 

[Lone Bonobo]

I've found some stinkhorns in the egg stage. wierd
i've heard that the egg inside is edible, but after disecting it i'm not feeling to hungry.
Has anyone here eaten one?

 

[george]

Never tried one LB but I believe they are said to be edible in some of the guides - however the thought of them would put me right off. Some things are worth trying just for the sake of it - others, like the stinkhorn, just don't seem worth it!

George

 

[Danzo]

I know this may be slightly off-topic, so please delete this, BCUK mods, if you think I am being inappropriate.

People may not be aware that a certain variety of mushroom, such as one might consume at Glastonbury, or a Hawkwind gig, have become a category A drug to possess.

Prior to the change in the law these were legal to possess and consume so long as they hadn't been 'treated' in any way, such as drying or made into some item of food.

Simple possession of 'magic mushrooms' in their natural state, that is harvested but untreated, is now a criminal offence on the same level as heroin or crack cocaine.

If it helps someone not get busted I think it's worth knowing.

Danzo

 

[Moonraker]

The morel season came and went quickly here with the cold spell. a couple of weeks ago with the hotter weather and some rain there were the first oak ceps although I did not get any. It is too dry now for much and also the moon is not right (believe me, all the French follow the lunar cycle and it really seems to work with fungi!).

However I did visit a local beech wood where I often harvest oyster mushrooms and as it was still quite humid in the wood I had a nice basket of around 2 kg this afternoon and found a nice orchid right next to them as a bonus I am spending a lot of time currently looking for and photographing orchids and other wild flowers but always keep an eye open for mushies

Today's forage before picking . Oyster Mushrooms.

and the lovely 'Red Helleborine Orchid' (Cephalanthera rubra) found right next to the fallen beech tree the oyster mushrooms grow on. A real bonus this.