Hedgehogs, puffs, shaggys, combs and garden harvesting......

After that huge rain event, the bush and fields are erupting with mushrooms. The giant triple puffball growing beneath the crab-apple tree is expanding daily.

September 26

We sauteed up the fourth one that was off by itself, decided it was pretty bland, so we left the others to do their thing.

They are still expanding, volleyball sized now. Two of them seem to be totally squashing the third one. Their surfaces look, and feel like soft leather.

October 5

Shaggy manes keep coming up along the edges of the driveway, and under the tractor.

We harvested some of them, but they are so delicate and short lived, and love coming up through gravel, so it's hard to get all the grit off of them. 

Honey mushrooms are everywhere in the bush, as are smaller, more flavourful puff balls. On Sunday, I scored a Hedgehog mushroom.

Hedgehog and puffballs

It is one that I've been on the lookout for, and is the first one I've ever found. It was super delicious...now one of my favourite foraged mushrooms. I always slice the puff balls in half, to be absolutely sure they are puffballs, as poisonous white amanitas can be deceptive in their button stage.  

During a little walk around the trails yesterday, we found a couple of other edibles.

Bear's head tooth

Comb tooth

We have tried the comb tooth, and its flavour is very mild. 

 
After having a guest for the better part of last week, then a foggy, rainy weekend, I am finally getting back to dismantling the garden. The potatoes have been dug, some of them so big, one might feed three people!

We had two nights with a frost advisory late last week, and Friday morning we awoke to a white crust of frost here and there, over the grass. It wasn't a heavy frost though, and we had covered the frost sensitive plants. Yesterday I turned under the last bed of buckwheat and pulled the last tomato plants. We procured our load of manure over the weekend, so can now go ahead and get it spread on the beds and turned under. The pepper plants were still putting out blooms, but there is no way they would ever make fruit this late in the season, so I pulled them and harvested the remaining peppers.

They will be sliced and dehydrated for winter pizzas. I've been pulling and sharing my second planting of carrots. Here are a few I pulled just for a picture. They are long, and straight, with no sign of carrot fly maggots. 

Down beside the rock pile in the back yard, my tire planters are giving us a lovely last burst of colour, marigolds, asters and the last crocosmia blooms.