TEST

After I returned from Scotland it was quite busy at work for several weeks. Than it was time to do some preserves for winter so I did not have too much time to visit trails. Weather was quite hot and humid. Walking through woods was not really overly pleasant and mushrooms seemed to be totally absent. I found some traces of old honey mushrooms indicating that I missed them this year. I am not really disappointed since honey shrooms are not on my list of favorites. Maitake is and it seems that I missed them completely, too. Finally, a weekend for mushrooming came. In some areas of the deciduous woods it seemed that nothing changed and it was hard to spot even traces of mushrooms. On the logs there was several clusters of oyster mushrooms, but all of them were too old to be used in kitchen. In other areas, mainly under maple, there was the whole big crop of blewitts . Definitely mushroom high on my list of edibles. This is a good opportunity to demonstrate several additional observation...

On weekend I visited forest near Cambridge (Ontario). The area is some 45 km North-West of my home. I was passing through really old hardwoods and area with mature spruce. Hardwoods The most spectacular was strong showing of clusters of Clitocybula oculus .  In my main field guide ( Mushrooms of Ontario and Eastern Canada ) the name is differently spelled, so there is some difficulty finding info on this mushroom. The main prize was my first find of the Hericium americanum. Excellent edible tasting very much like seafood (scallops). This mushroom loves old decayed logs. Some years I find them in great numbers. The one on the picture is very young and fresh, with pink overtones in the tips. It still did not develop relatively long "teeth", typical for this species. As an interesting find I will mention Geopora sepulta. Very handsome cup mushroom. I do not encounter it frequently. Coniferous Woods The first mushroom I noticed was chicken fat mushroom ( Suillus americanus ). ...

On August 22nd I was doing some work in Barrie Ontario. This is some 160 km from my home in north-east direction. I finished a little earlier than expected and on my way home visited one of the forests surrounding Barrie. As a general rule, more North you go in Ontario it is easier to find crown lands and regional forests that allow mushrooming. Barrie is surrounded with excellent mixture of forested areas. Some of them are natural and some were planted in the second half of 20th century. Planted areas are usually pines. The area I visited is situated north west of Barrie. And what a treat that was! The forest is mixed woods with hardwoods and conifers relatively evenly distributed. On the bases of my previous visits I expected to find some lobster mushropoms .  I did find couple, but the host species (Lactarius and Rusulla) were quite present, especially Lactifluus piperatus.   Therefore I expect in September much more of the lobsters around. During my short visit I found a great vari...

It is a common knowledge that mushrooms and rain go hand in hand, right? Well, this summer in Southwestern Ontario it does not seem to be the case. I did not check any official statistics but I am pretty sure that there was not a 3 day period without rain. After quite disappointing start of the summer with absence of any significant growth of chanterelles, I expected boletes, puffballs, rusullas and milky mushrooms (especially orange milky mushrooms) to make up for that. The reality is quite different. Up to this day puffballs are almost completely absent. I did not find a single giant puffball yet. Rusullas are rare and far between and therefore almost always attacked by slugs and bugs. As far as lactarius goes I did find several Lactarius volemus and handful of Lactarius hygrophoides,  but certainly not enough even for a single meal. Retiboletus ornatipes  is present in significantly smaller numbers than usual, but still enough to collect a decent meal if you really try. The one mush...

I am an avid trail-side nibbler on my walks down the trails in search of mushrooms. My favorite snack is probably the black raspberry. The beginning of July is a prime time for this wild fruit. Wild strawberries are just done and red raspberries and blackberries did not start yet. This year, conditions seem to be particularly favorable, and the black raspberry crop is extremely good. The berries are quite small and it is not easy to pick any significant amount. Extremely prickly bushes don't help. One will certainly end up with a number of scratches and thorns on one's hands and arms. I did manage to pick an amount sufficient to try and make one batch of jam. Berry jams are usually made quite sweet for a main simple reason - they need a lot of sugar to be able to set. The berries themselves are very poor in pectin.  Insufficient pectin and sugar will result in runny jam. Recently I discovered a great product:  Pomona's Universal Pectin .  This product does not require sugar...

  The main thing I noticed on my recent hikes on the Niagara escarpment were Elderberries. A great number of bushes with huge amount of berries (in both green and red stage) abound. Personally, I have never tried to do anything with this berry, but this year,  I will try to make elderberry syrup. It is supposed to be a great remedy for colds and mild flu. [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="49" gal_title="elderberry_2017"] In my last post I mentioned the apparent absence of the crown coral mushroom. Well, in the last several days it did show up in many places. Maybe the growth is not really abundant, but they are certainly present and were missed up until now. [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="47" gal_title="crown_coral_2017"] Several days ago I was checking the south-east slope of the hill for Lactarius hygrophoides (my favorite orange milky, now moved to the new genus Lactifluus). The trees around these mushrooms  are mainly oak with some pines mixed in. Un...

Summer is here. The first half of June has passed. Platterful mushrooms and Oysters were around, as expected. Somehow it seems I always stumble upon Oysters when they have already past the stage beyond useful.   Platterful mushroom usually arrive as plump, meaty gray mushrooms of a medium size. This year, despite quite wet weather in Southern Ontario, mushrooms seem somehow stunted and almost all of them had broken a cap, showing white a fleshy inside. I was expecting to get at least a small crop of Crown Coral ( Clavicorona pyxidata ), but instead Golden Coral shows in decent numbers. It is worth mentioning that some golden corals are poisonous, so gathering for eating purposes requires some experience. Of course, summer is the season of Chanterelles and Boletes. Checking some of my spots revealed the start of chanterelles. Nothing worth picking yet, but I will revisit the same spots in a few days. I was a little bit surprised to find a small cluster of two-colored boletes  thi...

For a little bit different take on foraging and wild foods, I went out and harvested some wild grapes ( Riverbank Grapes ) - Vitis riparia . This is the first year for me to try and do something with this fruit. It seems wherever you look while walking the trails there is a blue tinge in the bush - abundance of wild grapes. [caption id="attachment_2726" align="alignnone" width="663"] Amazing abundance[/caption] [caption id="attachment_2727" align="alignnone" width="663"] Amazing abundance[/caption] It is probably happening every year, but I simple did not notice or did not pay attention. The taste of the grape itself varies, mainly being quite sour. That makes perfect trail side snack, very refreshing and thirst quenching. A little bit of reading shows that wild grapes were widely use by natives. Their technique was to wait for the first frost to harvest. Apparently freezing improves sweetness. Well, I am not waiting, at lea...

On Labor Day Monday I decided to venture to Cambridge Area (some 50km from my home).  In the old oak woods I found Giant Puffballs (Calvatia gigantea) . This mushrooms shows up at the end of the summer in various spots - meadows, woods, shrubs etc. It is quite common find and nothing unusual. But this time there was more than 20 giants in less than 100m². They did not form any noticeable fairy ring (I did find them before in partial fairy rings) but were scattered around like some toys on the playground. Furthermore, there was very little damage on the bodies, and that is quite unusual. Despite fairly dry conditions none of them was cracked and discolored. [caption id="attachment_2555" align="alignnone" width="663"] Beautiful Giant Puffball specimen[/caption] Here is the picture with my Blackberry Z10 for the scale (Z10 is approximately 14cmX7cm): [caption id="attachment_2557" align="alignnone" width="663"] Z10 for a Scale[/...