Volunteer mushrooms
This
beautiful mushroom popped out of the half-buried log bounding one side
of our three year old peach raised bed. I've been piling
weeds and dirt along the sides of the raised bed every year, but was a bit concerned
that the peach roots would get stuck inside and not make it out into
the surrounding soil. Clearly, some fungi are hard at work
breaking those logs down into prime compost and clearing the way for
the peach roots' expansion.
For a few minutes, I
thought this might be a wild oyster
mushroom, enhancing
the edibility of our forest garden. But my best guess at the
moment is Smooth Panus (Panus
conchatus), a
relative of the oysters, but one which has edibility listed as "tough
but apparently harmless." I guess I'll let the mushroom work in
peace, although I'm tempted to harvest the dozens of insects hiding in
the gills for chicken feed.
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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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