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.

 

dscn6803

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.

1000913

dscn6794

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.

dscn6712 dscn6718

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]

 

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Morels 2 (2016)

Image
Encouraged by the finds couple of days ago I visited one of my best spots for Morels .  There was no trace of any mushrooms yet. The only thing indicating something is going on are several Dryad's Saddles in very early stage of growth. The Trillium is everywhere, showing great variations in color. I did find many small patches of Ramps. All of them were too small to harvest.   I will try again on Weekend.
Read more

Morels 3 (Fiddleheads) (2016)

Image
Temperatures dipped back to near zero over several nights.I tried  foraging in North York Regional forest with zero result. The consolation price for the weekend of May 14th were fiddleheads. There is some controversial info on the web about fiddleheads. Some sources have a warning about carcinogenic compounds found in several species of fern.The fact is they are still  sold in grocery shops in Ontario. I limit my foraging to Ostrich Fern . It is easily recognized by 3 characteristics: Dark green, almost bluish in color Paper like membrane (visible on picture bellow) Presence of characteristic spore bearing fronds Anyway, I follow recommendation of Government of Canada and cook my fiddleheads thoroughly, just in case. The fiddlheads season is very short. The best way to preserve is to blanch(cook in boiling water 2 minutes, shock with cold water to stop cooking), dry and put in freezer bags). Fiddleheads have a great, buttery taste and can be eaten as side dish or cooked veg
Read more

October 17, 2016

Image
Seems like I dismissed warm weather a little too early. Today expected daily high is 27°C! The forecast is still factoring in humidex! In the woods the fall change is well under way. I guess trees are reacting to calendar as much as couple of cold nights. The colors are amazing. All the shades of green, yellow, brown and red are present. On the floor of the woods big flourish of Honey Mushrooms has passed. There are still some around but big clumps are gone. At this time they are frequently infested by bugs. I found numerous traces of heavy harvesting. Blewits are showing in numbers. As usual they are forming partial or full fairy rings. Due to worm weather some of them are still buggy. This is excellent edible, definitely one of my favorites. Blewit color can vary greatly and it is not recommended for the beginners. For me the odor is one of the main characteristics for recognition. [caption id="attachment_3115" align="alignnone" width="663"] Clitocybe n
Read more