Entoloma abortivum, shrimp of the woods, found along the stream at the bottom of the slope. A choice edible for us. Dacrymyces chrysospermus, orange jelly spot, grows on dead conifers. It is edible but flavorless.Armillaria mellea, Honey mushroom, an edible mushroom found growing in groups up top in the pines.More Honey mushrooms
We took a walk in the rain around Saint Andrews Forest Farm yesterday and saw plenty of fungi to our delight. The animals had eaten some of the Honey mushrooms. These are highly nutritious. We were fascinated by the fairy ring of Honey mushrooms up top which showed this Armillaria to be maybe 15 or 20 feet in diameter. Most of it is underground mycelium.
We’d been waiting for these to emerge along with the Entoloma abortivum which are actually honey mushrooms parasitized by Entoloma. Each year they show up together and it is a helpful identification factor. They are delicious and we are having them for breakfast this morning with our eggs.
They are best when browned well. 😋
We also found a few more patches of pawpaws growing along the southern wet weather gully! They are easily spotted right now as they are beginning to go dormant for winter as evidenced by their yellowing leaves.
These shrimp of the woods are growing on roots and dead wood along the sides of the waterway. They are decomposers.
Cutting back trees that have grown up through the roadway on the north side of SAFF.
We couldn’t wait to get back out to clear some more trees from the roadway. We used the chainsaw, loppers and the string trimmer to clear out another chunk of the road. This time we made it just past the culvert with the shoe lasts. We were pleased and exhausted. The road is covered with leaves, pine needles and other forest debris so we keep pushing the debris aside with our foot to find stones underneath. It’s a compacted dark gray stone just like our driveway up top. The roadway goes along the northern boundary from the top clearing to the back line near another road. It stretches for acres and gives us truck access to the whole farm. A man stopped by a few weeks ago and said he was a member of the family that owned the property. He said the road ran all around the farm and also mentioned tobacco was grown on SAFF. It’s almost all forest now. We hope to figure out where the tobacco was grown. We’ve been bringing our homemade compost out to the farm to nestle in our new plantings and nourish the soil.
Ferns and trees have grown up through the roadway for more than a decade or two.Our newly planted fig snuggled in with our fresh compost from our wormery at the house garden.
We also checked our lion’s mane experiment right off the clearing. Last fall we inoculated beech logs with lion’s mane mushrooms and yesterday we saw the mycelium creating something that looks like it may be what we hoped for.
Inoculated logs with lions mane spawn. We will keep a close eye on these logs after every rain.
Then we took a walk around and found Shrimp of the woods, Entoloma abortivum, a choice edible mushroom down by the waterway at the bottom in the pawpaw patch. We found it last year in the same spot. These are early and we expect much more with the next rains. The temperature is perfect for mushrooms. We are waiting on rain.
These are delicious treats we sautéed for 25 minutes in a pan with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and we had them on our salad for dinner. The texture and appearance is like shrimp and the taste was scrumptious.
We also continue to forage for pawpaws on public land to and from the farm. We found three more fruits yesterday. Each one has been a tropical delight tasting of mango, banana with hints of caramel and vanilla. Even better, they are full of seeds we are going to plant to further our pawpaw grove and increase production by adding more dna and, in the long run light, to the area.
Pawpaw seeds
Saint Andrews Forest Farm Blog
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