More Shrooms, for Drying and Storing

The mild, intermittent rains are bringing ever more Garden Giants, popping up all over the wood chip yard. I went down with two boxes and harvested all the best looking ones, wine-red caps (hence its other name: Wine  Cap), nicely concave, the annulus (or ring/skirt) still high up under the cap. I came away with …

Mushroom Cultivation Workshop

What a day. Pouring rain for the first part of the mushroom cultivation workshop at Allandale Farm with NOFA-Mass Dan Bensonoff. Good for the fungi, and because it was pretty balmy, not harmful too humans. I am ready to start growing some mushrooms other than Garden Giant.  After that, potting up tomatoes, and sowing squash …

Bread and Mushrooms, and Honey

One of the changes we made during the Local Food Challenge that we kept was the locally-grown-grain home-made bread. Four Star Farms  in Northfield, MA, has been my go-to place (either through Volante Farm when they stock it, or straight from the farm) for hard red winter berries, which I grind in my mighty Vitamix. …

Fungi (i): Edible Mushrooms

Back in winter, my friend Alex and I were planning on starting a mushroom farm on the property. Unfortunately our calls for logs (oak, birch, beech, etc.) didn’t produce any, and so the inoculation season passed us by. But all was not lost. In  2010 I bought and planted mycelium of King Stropharia.  Stropharia rugosoannulata, …

Mushroom Walk and Print

Yesterday Wayland Walks, a very active offshoot of Transition Wayland, arranged a long mushroom walk with author/adventurer/mycologist Lawrence, aka Larry, Millman (picture). It was packed with discoveries, learning and humor, as Larry has a great way of sharing his knowledge and is a fountain of mushroom lore. It had rained just before the walk so …

We Ate Chicken

Actually Hen-Of-the-Neighborhood-Woods. My mycologist neighbor came by today with a paper bag. In October, after a rain storm, I know exactly what’s in it: mushrooms! It was a gorgeous chicken-of-the-woods, so fresh and soft it was still almost entirely white that new creamy white (compare to last year’s). I fried it in some olive oil …

What Makes an Ordinary Day Extraordinary?

A couple of days ago as I was walking to the elementary school to pick up Amie I was suddenly struck by what a fine day it was. Then I stopped in my tracks – we walk to and from school through “the woods”, that’s the neighbors’  wooded backyards, so they were, literally, tracks – and …

Edible Mushrooms in my Garden and Neighborhood

You may remember I tried to grow King Stropheria in a bed of sawdust and leaves. Unfortunately it dried out and I never got any shrooms from it. But my mushroom adventures just began anew. I learned a while ago that a neighbor is a hobby mycologist and I expressed interest. Today she came by …