
Mushroom harvest
With
the addition of oyster mushroom to our myciary (yes, I made that word
up), fungi have become one of our earliest spring "vegetables."
Our mushroom
totems
are fruiting heavily, proving the utility of the method at least during
our wet spring weather. Notice the cracked cap shiitake --- a
gourmet delicacy.
Meanwhile, a heavy rain
turned our mushroom raft into an actual raft,
or at least an island. Perhaps you can see why I swear by raised
beds and mounds in our waterlogged soil? Even though the mushroom
logs I used to create this raft are ones that didn't fruit last year, I
suspect if there's any life in them they'll produce mushrooms after
this dunking.
Over on the wild side, Dryad
Saddles
are poking out of one of the stumps in our front garden. I
remember planning to try to eat them if I found a younger specimen, but
Mushrooms Demystified has this to say about the
species --- "[Polyporus]
squamosus...is
edible when thoroughly cooked, but is thoroughly mediocre." With
such faint praise, I think I might leave the Dryad Saddles for the
wildlife.
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About us:
Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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