After steady rain, thunderstorms and cloudy skies in Buckingham for 12 of the last 15 days, we went out with high hopes of finally finding mushrooms. When we pulled into the clearing up top at SAFF, we saw hundreds of small puffballs. We found four other species before we made it from the clearing into the forest. Inside the woods, it seemed mycelium was everywhere we looked. SAFF has become a mushroom wonderland after the months of drought and heat, the rain and lower temperatures really brought the mushrooms.
Mycelium appearing in white spots on the forest floor along Fern Way. Mycelium attached to Japanese stiltgrass roots an invasive we are pulling up where we see it in small numbers and plan to cardboard and mulch over it where it has a stronger foothold.Amanita rhopalopus, American Club-footed lepidella found near our road up top just before the south set back line. They had bugs all over them.Unknown Agaricus found in multiple spots along the south side.Frost’s bolete, Exsudoporous frostii, at bottom of slope near our crossing of waterway into the pawpaw grove. This was a spectacular sight. It’s edible and tastes acidic like lemon. Mycorrhizal with oaks.Top of the Frost’s bolete.Red mouth bolete, Neoboletus subvelutipes, is inedible and cause gastrointestinal distress. Red pores or spores are typically a warning sign with boletes. Boletus subluridellus a red pored bolete that is supposed to be edible. We have not tried it but reports are to boil first then it’s okay and delicious. Mycorrhizal with pine and oak.White boletes found in the flood plain below the slope at SAFF. These are edible. Leccinum holopus, white birch bolete or ghost bolete. White birch bolete were all over the bottom near the waterway. Lilac bolete, boletus separans, found with oaks and conifers and all over the forest floor at SAFF. These are delicious and beautiful mushrooms, a choice edible. We have found pounds of these.
Golden gilled bolete, Phylloporus rhodoxanthus, found along Hawk Trail. Mycorrhizal with hardwoods usually oaks or Beech (both are near where we found these beauties).
Yesterday we went over to do some planting in the rain. It has been raining every day or so for the past week and the ground is wonderfully moist and much greener. All along the trails, we could see white mycelium spider webbing on the forest floor. We created a new garden bed at the bottom of North Trail by laying our tree trunks perpendicular to the slope.
Tulip Poplar trees we took down and placed to help slow water run off and build our first fish scale terrace for planting and water and soil conservation.
It may not seem like much but this is a huge paradigm shift for us as we have imagined fish scale terracing our slopes for the past year and it came together just as we’d hoped. We are eventually making a space for pawpaws. For now, we will have smaller plants. The ground was soft and pliable in the rain. We practice minimal disturbance gardening to improve our soil quality, increase yields and drought resilience as well as increase fertility. So this means we dig as little as possible to keep our soil and mycelium undisturbed.
Chris busy felling tulip poplar trees which have grown up too close and tall in the forest that was disturbed 20 years ago. Many are diseased from not having enough space and light. We plan to use their trunks to construct our fish scale terraces.King bolete found on South Trail about 2/3 of the way down. The bugs love it! Blue-Green cracking Brittlegill, Russula parvovirescens, found along South Trail. Mycorrhizal with oak, hardwoods and conifers. Over the past year, we’ve observed these when the weather is rainy and the temperature is in the 80s.Our new sign gifted to us from Chris’ parents who visited the farm last weekend. We love it!
It felt like we had a hundred chores and errands to do on this July Friday afternoon before we could escape to the Farm. It’s been a heavy week in some ways. Getting out of town was like running a maze, the truck was down a quart of oil, we needed to drop some papers off in Charlottesville, and we wanted tacos from our favorite place. We finally arrived at the Farm a little after 3, after setting out around noon. The ground was still dry, but the air was cooler, around 80 degrees and the breeze was refreshing. The last three weeks the hot wind has hit us like a blast furnace. We started our walk up near the entrance and walked through the forest to the South end to check on our blueberries. There hasn’t been enough rain for them to ripen, so they continue to hang in unripe blue-green stasis. The grass hasn’t grown much with the persistent drought, and we didn’t even see a tick. Ticks thrive in damp conditions, and there hasn’t been any precipitation. We came across a big dung beetle not having much luck trying to get home.
Dung beetle
Throughout our visit the clouds were gathering, we could see them moving towards and over us from the South. After our walk and a snack, we prepared to head home, when the skies finally opened up with blessed rain. It started as a sprinkle, then drizzle, and then a steady shower.
Is it really raining? We sat there in the truck and talked for a little while with the windows open, just letting the rain come in. Our spirits are lighter, with the return of rain to the Farm. We will be back in a day or two to forage with better prospects than we’ve had in weeks.Cicada chimney spotted near the waterway at the bottom of the slope. These chimneys are seen several weeks before cicadas nymphs emerge in wetlands. In dry areas they are usually seen as a hole in the ground. Evidence of an oak stem borer, Anaflomorpha sunpubescens. Natural enemies take care of these so no control is usually necessary.Unidentified honeycomb found at the bottom of North Trail. Unknown mushroom appears to be covered in Hypomyces.
It’s been in the nineties, and even though the air feels plenty humid, the ground is baked, cracked and dry. It hasn’t rained enough in far too long with these high temperatures. There have been heat advisories every day this week. It’s crunchy walking underfoot everywhere but the bottom by the waterway. The clearings are mostly brown. The bottom of the slope has a slight bit of water trickling through the stream. We were glad to see that.
Cranefly orchid emerges with reddish brown stems just springing up from the ground. A flower will appear next.
We’ve been battling an invasive tree called Ailanthus or tree of Heaven. We found them last summer in three different spots all up top near the main clearing and by our neighbors to the north. Another name for Ailanthus is Chinese sumac. Differentiation between Ailanthus and our native shining sumac, Rhus copallinum, was a challenge initially with the smaller specimen. However, now we can see the difference between them easily with our practice watching over our forest floor.
Because it is so tenacious by producing an overly abundant amount of seeds, crowding out native species with dense thickets and secreting a chemical into the soil that is toxic to other plants, there are best practices to ridding these trees from your land. It involves a hack and squirt method in the fall when the tree is sending the most nutrients to the root. We did this to all 4 of the larger trees we couldn’t pull out by hand. This year the trees sent up hundreds of root suckers so we are waiting for a good soaking rain to soften the ground and then we can pull them out. We will continue to do this as they grow. Whatever is still alive in the fall, we will hack and squirt again.
Smaller Ailanthus trees root suckering in a circle from the larger tree. These in particular would easily overtake the native trees and blueberries while creating a dense thicket if we don’t stop them. We pulled these out after a brief rain last week. The roots are shallow spreading and aggressive.
Eastern black walnut trees, Juglans nigra, found by the waterway at the bottom of North Trail. We always get excited when we find a new native species.
Saint Andrews Forest Farm Blog
Is this your new site? Log in to activate admin features and dismiss this message
St Andrews Forest Farm 