I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.
John Burroughs

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

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.



9 comments:

  1. My mom used to fry up sliced puffball for us. They grew by the barn hill. As a child, I wasn't all that fond of the flavor but I think I would like it more now. I had a couple of giant potatoes, too. Your peppers look wonderful. -Jenn

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Jenn. All those peppers are dried and fit in a quart jar now! The texture of the puffball is soft and marshmallowy, once fried up, and it has a mild flavour, not my favourite mushroom.

      Delete
  2. Envious here of your knowledge of wild mushrooms! Did you learn from someone or from book learnin'? We, too, have seen an explosion of them all around, in the lawn and in the woods, since we've gotten some rain this fall. It's like they were just there waiting patiently for the moisture they needed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The mushrooms do pop up when conditions are right, and moisture seems to be the cue. I have always been interested in what Mother Nature provides, without any help from me! Mushrooms can be quite beautiful, drawing one's attention, then finding out you can eat them....! I did go out with a local couple, knowledgeable mushroom folk, and have 4 good ID books, and of course, the internet. Glad you finally got that rain!

      Delete
  3. Oh how envious I am on your knowledge of mushrooms! We see a lot of them on our property, but I just don’t know anything about them. You flowers look so welcoming and festive! So happy for you with the dried peppers! Get a great weekend and some porch sittin!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I keep working on it! I stick with the easier to ID ones. I'll never, ever figure them all out!
      Thank you wyomingheart.

      Delete
  4. Hi Rosalea! Your peppers, carrots and potatoes look amazing. I need to check on my potatoes today. We had some big frost last night, it was below freezing when I woke up with crunchy frosty grass. I'm amazed that my lettuce is still looking nice too, late bloomer, but I'll be harvesting that today too. Those "tooth" mushrooms looks so neat...I love that you know all about those fun guys...ha ha I'm so funny. Seriously though, I think I'd be too worried about picking wild mushrooms, just don't know enough about them! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Rain. I am waiting to see your garden progress! Very surprisingly, no heavy frost here yet. Most mushrooms are very beautiful, and that piqued my interest years ago, and now I have time to learn more about them.

      Delete
    2. Rosalea, my garden progress is to be forgotten this year lol...but I'll be trying new things each spring! :)

      Delete