Good year for the wood munchers

[Geoff Dann]

It's a pretty bad year for most of the ground-fruiting fungi, especially the boletes. But the wood-munchers are doing fine. I found this lot a couple of days ago, and was so pleased I actually took my first ever video and made my first ever youtube upload.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtuuaFzc1qM

As you can see, I'm not much of a film-maker! I'm a bit of a technology-phobe. These had to be filmed though, because I couldn't get them all in one photo.

[_Matt_]

Could feed a family for a week with those! It's funny actually because in some places i am lucky to find any mushrooms at all, yet in others they are everywhere. I've no idea why that is, and it is down to my lack of understanding on the subject. The habitats aren't necessary different either. I went to some pine plantations the other day and the only mushroom i saw were some yellow russula's here and there but otherwise nothing. That is the place i would have expected to find a lot of different things.

[AdrianRose]

Wow, that's a very impressive haul there buddy.

PLEASE tell me you collected some to eat.

Ade.

[Geoff Dann]

Wow, that's a very impressive haul there buddy.

PLEASE tell me you collected some to eat.

Ade.

Yep. I also took some of them to show some people at a mushroom talk in Chelsea, but they were kind of eclipsed by the beefsteak fungus I found a bit later. The dryad's saddle's win the eye-candy prize though. They are impressive mushrooms, even when there's only a couple of them.

Some of those are a bit too big to eat (unless you throw most of it away except the edge), but the small ones were juicy. :)

[Geoff Dann]

I went to some pine plantations the other day and the only mushroom i saw were some yellow russula's here and there but otherwise nothing. That is the place i would have expected to find a lot of different things.

Yellow russulas all over the place. I spent quite a lot of time in pine woods today, and most of it was pretty sparse. Then we found an enormous cauliflower fungus. :)

[Geoff Dann]

Could feed a family for a week with those! It's funny actually because in some places i am lucky to find any mushrooms at all, yet in others they are everywhere. I've no idea why that is, and it is down to my lack of understanding on the subject.

I have no idea why it is either, and I know a bit about fungi. There's quite a lot about fungi and their habits that nobody understands, because the science has never been done, because there's no money in it.

[Geoff Dann]

It didn't stop there either. See the Dryad's Saddles in the background.

5622

[twosmokeforever]

what did you do with the dryads saddle & and the beefsteak? did you also take some stump puffballs?

we had a day off on sunday and went for a walk in the forest of dean

most useful find was ameyst deceiver's which made a colourful salad cooked in olive oil with origano (the only ones we took)

one maggot infested bolete (only the 2nd one I have seen this season) two maggot infested parosol's, a common puff ball just on the turn. Oak milkcap (guess's where that was growing?), honey fungus, yellow russala's & jews ear so bar the all the purple deceivers poor really!

going to make the effort today whilst doing my sales job, to get some sea greens from by the old severn bridge

and I was told I was weird last week for collecting wallnuts by a girl on a horse, because I guess they normally grow in supermarkets

[Geoff Dann]

what did you do with the dryads saddle & and the beefsteak? did you also take some stump puffballs?


I took them to an evening talk at the Bluebird in Chelsea and cooked some up for people to try. They were impressed with the beefsteak, which was very fresh and juicy.

Day trip to the New Forest today...

[twosmokeforever]

the new forest is the holyland, shrooms out the forest, sea fishing, shellfish and marsh sampfire from the mudflats by the castle a few miles round from mudeford

glamping holiday booked for the week before august bank holiday, the tides times seem good to launch our little speed, crab, fishing, boat from mudeford

have you do anything with pine nuts?

[Geoff Dann]

the new forest is the holyland,

For mushrooms? No it isn't. Or rather, because it is, it isn't. The day I saw somebody from Newcastle talking on the interweb about his annual trek to the New Forest to pick mushrooms I knew I was right for not ever bothering to go there. I went there today (customer request - I tried to talk them out of it.) It was total ****. Lots of people looking for edible fungi, almost no edible fungi. Funny, that.

If I lived in Newcastle I would not drive to the New Forest in search of mushrooms. I would not even drive south. I would go to Scotland.

If you really want to find some decent edible fungi, I suggest trying somewhere that everybody else hasn't already thought of...

[twosmokeforever]

last august bank holiday it was our greatest mushroom hunt ever, was told off by the misses for over picking. even the child was running around in circles collecting. But its more than that we have a 12ft classic cheap speed boat and its the fun of the water and with the time off we can eat like kings from the wild. sadly the area is too busy over this weekend so perhaps this year I will put some razor wire around the tent to give us some space, and don't get me started on the price to camp

is it me or this a bad year though? I have only seen 2 boletes and the last two seasons we were eating these at least everyweek

I was collecting sweet chestnuts yesterday and the leaves have fallen, I haven't seen a lawyers wig for a month so is autumn gone? are we done. And the ground is so wet maybe why the munchers are out in force

the orache I picked yesterday is also looking tired, so i'm on to the sea beet already. just seems like I missed the good times

[Geoff Dann]

Worst year for boletes I can remember, given that it's not a total write-off due to drought. Pretty bad for most ground-fruiting fungi. Far too many slugs.