October 22, 2016

Some rainy days and over night temperatures in the low tens - started to feel like October.  The weather is perfect for Blewits and they are around with some slug damage, but bug infestation is minimal. This is a great time to enjoy fresh Blewits (cooked, of course). With some patience you can collect enough for drying or pickling. As October progresses there is more and more fallen leafs in deciduous wood, making it hard to spot even bright colored mushrooms. At this time I tend to concentrate mainly on the coniferous woods.

 

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From now on the Tricholomas take over and show up in great fairy rings. Rings in coniferous woods are easily visible and quite impressive, but hard to catch in the photography. The most common one in this area is probably Tricholoma virgatum.

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I am not interested too much in Genus Tricholoma although some highly sought mushroom are found in it (e.g. Tricholoma magnivelare). The grey Tricholomas are yet to show up.

Various Suillus species are quite abundant. This year I did not pick any since there is plenty of dried ones at home still to be used. I can see telltale signs  of  picking by others.

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Surprisingly there is still some Maitakes around. Unfortunately majority of ones I did find were too old for actual use in the kitchen. I did manage to dry some, thanks to the giant one Linda detected in the hollow under gigantic dead oak stump. I cut less than half of this mushroom and I think we will be OK for the winter as far as dried Maitake goes.




[caption id="attachment_3222" align="alignnone" width="663"]dscn6782 Huge Maitake in the stump hollow[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3223" align="alignnone" width="663"]100_09171 Dried Maitake[/caption]

 

 

 

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