There are a lot of varieties of mushrooms in our local area at the minute, but I know nothing about identifying them and to be honest I'm a little scared of accidentally poisoning my family. So I've taken photographs and I'm going to try to find out what they are.
Some of them closely resembled the "brown field mushrooms" you can buy in the supermarket. They were growing in the boggy part of a grassy field, as were some that I'm pretty sure are shaggy ink caps, which are edible.
Some of them I think are the fairy ring type. There were loads of them but they're very small. Some were growing in the grass and others in wood chips under the swings in the park.
The most interesting ones were growing in a very shady part of my garden under a evergreen tree.
I'm looking forward to adding them to the "Now Picking" section of my sidebar.
5 comments:
Mushroom identification often relies on the smell, the colour the flesh goes when cut, the exact details of how the gills are attached, the colour of spore prints etc.
You could innoculate your lawn with edible mushroom spores, or you can buy kits to innoculate an old log or two with spores for things like shiitake to ensure a good ongoing crop.
Ann's fungi
And you can always grow oyster mushrooms on loo rolls ...
Mycologue are more expensive for dowel spore, but also carry spore for seeding lawns with shaggy ink cap, parasol mushrooms etc.
Some good links there, Shona, thanks. I have tried growing button mushrooms at home from kits before and never had any luck with them. Maybe I'll try again with something more interesting like shiitake or oysters.
My Grandma used to take us out to collect mushrooms and we picked everything we found which she identified as edible. I don't know how much she really knew about them, because she used to fry them with a silver spoon in the pan. Supposedly it went black if there was poison present, but as it never did and none of us died, I don't really know how much credence to give this. Not enough to risk it, certainly.
blackberry44 said...
My Grandma ... used to fry them with a silver spoon in the pan. Supposedly it went black if there was poison present, but as it never did and none of us died, I don't really know how much credence to give this. Not enough to risk it, certainly.
10:59 PM
Silver spoon! You were posh. My gran used to try them out on next door's dog.
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