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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