What are You Eating from the Garden?

Trish Stretton

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A friend I don't get to see often stopped by yesterday for a visit.
At one point our conversation included morels and hunting them. They're in season now, and she and her young family have a regular (top secret!) hike they take to look for them.
I walked her out to her truck and as we passed the apple trees she spotted these growing under them!

View attachment 31602
I've never had morels before and it's such fun to have picked these from my own yard. They're on the menu tonight.
Anybody have a favorite way to prepare them?

I'm so jealous! I have tried a number of times to innoculate my back yard with mushrooms
 

flowerbug

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I'm so jealous! I have tried a number of times to innoculate my back yard with mushrooms

have you ever tried to innoculate fairly green wood and burying that part ways in the ground in a shady moist spot? i was hoping to do that here with some chunks of wood but the friend who was going to cut and haul the wood forgot i wanted it...
 

thistlebloom

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I'm so jealous! I have tried a number of times to innoculate my back yard with mushrooms

There was a group of morels under one of the trees that was past prime so I left it in hopes that it will spore and reproduce.

I think it was somebody on here that inoculated a log and harvested some nice mushrooms... @thejenx maybe?
 

flowerbug

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There was a group of morels under one of the trees that was past prime so I left it in hopes that it will spore and reproduce.

I think it was somebody on here that inoculated a log and harvested some nice mushrooms... @thejenx maybe?

those mushrooms will give off millions of spores and i think they do it pretty quickly. the more rain and wind to move those spores around the better so at least a few of them will find suitable conditions.

my brother sent me a note this morning with pictures of morels from his yard where he's been dumping rinse water from his mushrooms. he walks the woods and picks them. they pop up pretty fast, he said the patch in his yard went from 2 to 6 in a few hours.
 
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thejenx

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There was a group of morels under one of the trees that was past prime so I left it in hopes that it will spore and reproduce.

I think it was somebody on here that inoculated a log and harvested some nice mushrooms... @thejenx maybe?
yes it was/is me! I've explained what I did in my garden thread here: https://www.theeasygarden.com/threads/jens-old-and-new-dutch-garden-2019.22550/page-7#post-347209

Let's hope the link works, and otherwise look up my old and new garden thread on page 7.
 

thistlebloom

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Trish Stretton

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yes it was/is me! I've explained what I did in my garden thread here: https://www.theeasygarden.com/threads/jens-old-and-new-dutch-garden-2019.22550/page-7#post-347209

Let's hope the link works, and otherwise look up my old and new garden thread on page 7.

Thanks for that, what time of year did you innoculate the trunks/branches?
I did try this but nothing happened. That was in mid summer. I think I only left them lying around for two weeks though. Would that make a difference?
 

thejenx

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@Trish Stretton
I inoculated them in July which is around the beginning of summer, it was quite hot and dry already.
The logs were fresly cut 5 or 6 weeks prior to inoculating and had been lying in a sunny spot for quite some time, not ideal. The norm is to let the logs die out some 4 weeks, if you do it sooner the logs are too fresh and fight off the fungus, wait much longer than 6 weeks and the chances are another fungus takes a foothold in the wood. I inoculated 3 kinds of mushrooms, on different logs ofcourse and only the shiitake took hold and produces mushrooms a few times a year.
 

flowerbug

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speaking of morels and innoculating. yesterday i had a returning visitor in the crushed limestone mulch. will try to get a picture today but it looks about like the one we had from 2017, but downhill a little more.

p5060005_Morel_thm.jpg


note that there is only a few inch layer of crushed limestone there and then a few layers of black plastic underneath. that mushroom is growing in whatever detritus has accumulated under there on a slope of all things. so you know there's not much there. the only thing i can think of which gives it a chance is whatever water drips off the roof that runs down that slope.

the ones that grew out front were 4 times that size or more.


here is link to the page with some of the other fungi we've had here plus me blabbing. :)

http://www.anthive.com/project/fungi/
 

flowerbug

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today i found five more morel mushrooms around and decided that yes i was going to eat them.

since it was just before i was going to head out to do some weeding or whatever to help out Mom i brought them in, cut off the dirty bottom part and then soaked them in some cool water then lightly fried them in butter.

the rinse water i took and spread around in various locations.

interesting to me was that some of the morels were growing in the gravel at the end of the driveway near the road. yes, i made sure to pick those right away. :) two others were growing in the back...

i asked Mom if she wanted some but she didn't. i left them sit in the glass pan while i was outside getting some gardens taken care of and then i had them with the rest of my dinner. they were delicious.
 

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