Like Flesh

A known oyster-mushroom log at the entrance to the eastern woods produced these fleshy beauties in late April (photo taken 27 April); the scissors help show the size. I'd been harvesting that log for about two years, April to December; the whole area around it was rich in mushrooms edible and non-edible because that opening was a game path as well as my favorite path, and 'shrooms love to grow in disturbed earth.

Then one day in May came a huge New Holland earth mover that for no reason broke through this log and others and treaded well into the woods, crushing to mud the best chanterelle, oyster, and Bearded Tooth patches I have cultivated and picked from for three or four years. Apparently it was for no reason except wanton destruction. They went into the woods as far as the dump but did not clean it up. I don't own the land so I can't object and besides, what's done is done.

It's a heartache. I visited the site again today and can't set it right. Chanterelles are due in about four weeks, if conditions are right. I seeded those everywhere in that area of woods, so I believe all is not lost regarding chanterelles. But the oysters? If I am good, I will be led to more. Maybe this mechanically disturbed earth will make hunting there even better one day, when the scars of the treads heal over.

Successful Mushroom Propagation

There were patches of chanterelles, lovely cheddar-yellow edibles, in my woods last summer, and I did as I was told and scissored them from the earth instead of yanking, and carried them in a net bag, which once held oranges, until I obtained a wicker basket -- the better for them to fling spores far and wide, generating new patches.

Then I waited for chanterelle season 2015: June and July. Propagation worked. Beyond my wildest. Behold today's basket (my basket is small -- I harvest only what I need) and, at right, one of the 20 or 30 new patches, the result of conservation and my active propagation.

Chanterelles grow in patches or "villages" on the forest floor, and only near, but not on, trees. I walked in that area every few days, year round, keeping the earth disturbed; mushrooms favor disturbed earth, which is why fungi grow so cheerfully in your lawn and your mulch.

I've changed my attitude toward rain. Rain means mushrooms. "Go out as soon as possible after rain," my mycological adviser said. So I do. It's a wonderland. I pick a few substandard, bug-eaten "chants" and crumble them in areas I'd like to see chants in 2016.

See "How I Cook Chanterelles" over at the Piehole blog.