May 31,2024 More Eastern Black Trumpets and Ripe Blueberries at St Andrew’s Forest Farm

Finally we have a few ripe blueberries. They were a tasty snack after we got some work done.

We went out to the farm to clean up a few spaces, look for more black trumpets and cut a trail through the south side. We were able to clear out some tiny tulip poplars and maples, paying close attention to keep any understory oaks as we learned the old oak forests throughout the world have a problem with understory oaks regenerating the forests. We decided we would only thin out diseased or failing oaks. https://youtu.be/NRWHHOAf39U?si=akypzxLUNo_7tOfn

Oaks have strong mycorrhizal https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/mycorrhiza connections as well, so we truly appreciate them for a number of reasons. SAFF has older, medium, saplings and seedling oaks all throughout so we aren’t seeing this problem. https://dcist.com/story/23/12/20/dc-local-forests-failing-tree-regeneration/

We were pleased to eat a few blueberries. We found them abundant and ripening first along the southern set back line, where they get plenty of sun.
Eastern Black trumpets
We ate yesterday’s black trumpets for breakfast this morning. We cooked them for 10 minutes on medium high heat in a dry pan, then lowered heat and added olive oil and garlic with a bit of salt and pepper. They were nutty, fruity and smoky. We enjoyed them as much as the golden chanterelles we found last summer. There are no known toxic lookalikes, so these are a great mushroom to forage . Some of our favorite mushrooms we have tasted. We performed some trail maintenance on ridge trail, made our way along the waterway, back over to the set back line and found more today. We harvested the largest and we can’t wait to eat these too. We made a trail up from the waterway to the Black Trumpet patches and beyond until we exhausted ourselves. We will call this Black Trumpet Way, it leads to the set back line.
For now, this is unknown Amanita that we will watch this weekend. Notice the volva underneath the mushroom that it emerged from.

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