Tag Archives: mushrooms

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August 19, 2024 – A Mushroom Wonderland

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Amanita jacksonii found on the north side of SAFF. The choice edibles are found in pine and oak forests from Canada, through the eastern US and into Mexico.

The past three times we’ve pulled into the clearing with the truck, we’ve seen a young deer. It’s usually sleeping in the forest and it hears us and takes off. We don’t think it’s too afraid because it doesn’t run far though. We come upon it multiple times like it has become a game for the adorable creature. It’s always alone. We hope it stays safe and we understand it’s safest for it to not be comfortable with humans. We’re also seeing a lot of bear poop on the north side of the farm. No sign of our 4 or 5 year old male bear this year but we think it’s him. It’s nice to know animals are taking advantage of the nuts, berries, mushrooms and shelter the trees provide.

We walked all around the trails that were damp from an afternoon thunderstorm that hit just before our arrival. Right away, we saw new mushrooms emerging from the ground that hadn’t been there the day before. Sometimes it takes a few days for the mycelium to send up the fruiting body after a rainstorm —and sometimes it’s quick.

We basketed up our bounty and left the farm as the sun was setting. We were too tired to cook the mushrooms last night so we stored them in a paper bag in the refrigerator and hoped they’d stay in nice shape. It’s best to cook them right away and save them cooked either in the refrigerator or the freezer depending on how quickly they will get eaten. But these wild mushrooms, especially the chanterelles, need to be used quickly.

They were in nice shape this morning so we dry cooked them for a few minutes in a skillet on 7. Added olive oil and butter and cooked about 15 minutes. We let them cool and have them stored in the refrigerator. We are thinking of making a wild mushroom quiche.

Amanita jacksonii have a bright red cap that can grow up to four inches A beautiful mushroom to find that looks very similar to deadly poisonous mushrooms. Care should be taken to identify and be confident before you plan to eat them.
Our mushroom harvest yesterday included ghost chanterelles, Cinnabar chanterelles, Indigo milk cap, Frost’s bolete and American slender Caesar.

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August 7, 2024 – Before tropical storm Debby at SAFF

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Cinnabar chanterelles found near the waterway right on the trail. These are choice edibles.

Tropical storm Debby is set to hit the farm tomorrow evening with rains expected to be 4-8 inches and peak wind gusts Friday morning at 34 mph. We can’t wait to see what this rain will bring since there’s been so many mushrooms already.

Retiboletus ornatipes, Ornate stalked bolete, is edible but not considered choice. We found them along South Trail.
Lactarius indigo, indigo milk cap, is a choice edible found off Chanterelle Trail. We brought these beautiful blue mushrooms home to eat.
Eastern North American Destroying Angel, Amanita bisporigera, a deadly poisonous mushroom found near North Trail.
Clitoria mariana, pigeonwings, found up top in clearing near twin oaks
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August 4, 2024 A New Trail —Mary Banning Way

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Amanita banningiana, Mary Banning Slender Caesar, has been found in every corner of Saint Andrews Forest Farm.

Mary Elizabeth Banning (1832-1903) was an American mycologist and botanical illustrator from Maryland. She described 23 previously unknown species of fungi. Her scientific achievements remained unrecognized during her lifetime. With no formal schooling or training, and during her free time, as she taught children and took care of her sick mother and older sister, she created the first mycological study of fungi in America with “The Fungi of Maryland.” This manuscript includes 174 13” by 15” watercolor paintings of various fungal species. She self funded her own study and lived in ever increasing poverty.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-lost-mushroom-masterpiece-unearthed-in-a-dusty-drawer

Banning dedicated her life to mycology and lived in a world where women could not be scientists. She has inspired many people with her love for fungi and who knows how many she has inspired with her accomplishments while facing tremendous hurdles and difficulties.

We blazed a new trail from SAFF’s north side to North Trail, and we have named it Mary Banning Way to always remember and honor this powerful, intelligent and creative woman.

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&sca_esv=e328c47da5cf79ba&hl=en-us&sxsrf=ADLYWIIwmcwpkr0oTLUTOUnkz28–u7l5w:1722959078107&q=mary+Elizabeth+banning&source=lnms&fbs=AEQNm0CgxwOFjiKYHNCRHSK3fdWj5Bfhn0qfSojWNk3sUgIBYunTvGd-atQ5vuydI-jpHqlf2bG9PoOqCjjAck2_Nh0_PQsVULTK7SAiDVgQtYGa-T2VhecsAjmd7f48Tpj2Wc96XEURaS756ngHPNnSgh-deW9qthss0LDkmdW0YgoRvNuTSFBvRX-HHAaboi-icdChhwk0PwgER4wyaU5GMZH4gvCdIw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiijMDe2uCHAxW2F1kFHU83Am8Q0pQJegQIGBAB&biw=320&bih=497&dpr=3#fpstate=ive&ip=1&vld=cid:70a48c23,vid:NlGam0jSZ04,st:0

We hope you look up her works.

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Late July and early August Many Amanitas at Saint Andrews Forest Farm

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Amanita amerirubescens complex from below
A. amerirubescens from above. Note the red blushing. These are edible when thoroughly cooked. We haven’t tried them.
Amanita jacksonii, a delicious Caesar mushroom that can even be eaten raw. We cooked them and they maintained a wonderful texture. These were some of the tastiest mushrooms we’ve had.
A. jacksonii, A. banningiana, Bolete edulis and Exsudoporous frostii in our basket. All were delicious. 😋

The forest is full of mushrooms with the rain we’re getting. Every day we go out and find something completely new. Since we bought the farm last year, we’ve searched for Amanita jacksonii. Saturday we walked down Amanita Way towards the wet weather gully and there they were. They were very large and strikingly red with orange caps and yellow stems. We have seen hundreds of Amanita parcivolvata, commonly called False Caesar, and these were instantly recognizable as the true sought after delicacy. The small one to the left in the basket is the first American caesar we found last week, Amanita banningiana or Mary Banning Slender yellow caesar. This is also tasty and special. They are much smaller and found in the northeastern and southern regions of the US.

A. banningiana has striations along the edge of the cap. It is found in oak-beech-hickory forests from Maine to Alabama.
A. parcivolvata, or false caesar. Found all over SAFF.
Amanita rhopalopus, American club footed Lepidella.
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Fun fungal finds

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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.
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July 23, 2024 Building our first fish scale terrace and a few edible mushrooms at SAFF

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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!
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June 15,2024 Camping at SAFF

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Our campsite at SAFF

We had our first camping experience at SAFF on Saturday night. It was the coolest overnight weather forecast for weeks so we thought we would take advantage of that. We’d been preparing for months with the compost toilet in the shed, keeping the clearings cut back neatly for tick mitigation and collecting the gear we’d need. We still had a good bit of gear to haul out even though we’d been taking loads over for weeks. All in all, the compost toilet combined with the sawdust was the heaviest load. We’ve been able to snack on our tart wild blueberries every time we’ve been out.

Our compost toilet. We use sawdust which we got from a local lumber yard. They dropped the largest load possible in our Honda Ridgeline. We wish we took a pic. It was a mountain of sawdust.
At dusk, we were pleasantly surprised by fireflies dancing about the clearing up top.
Chris getting our foam mattress situated in the tent.
An old mushroom we found on our early morning hike. A Russula near the North Trsil by the waterway.
Ferns on the southeast side.
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June 7, 2024 Scouting out camping spots, trail maintenance and a mushroom walk at SAFF

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Russula parvovirescens, Blue-green cracking Russula, found along Fern Trail. This is a very good edible mushroom.

We took the afternoon at the farm and we found it drier than we expected. Blueberries are ripening. We found new mushrooms we hadn’t seen before. We are planning to camp next weekend and looked for a fire pit location and tent spots. The weather was beautiful with a cool breeze in the shade and the sun shining.

Amanita flavoconia, Yellow patches, found on the south end near Black Trumpet Way.
This stick on top of the Russula is actually a root! There are 80 species of red Russula in North America and can only be identified to species level with ITS sequence. It’s recommended to do a spit test to see if it tastes spicy. If so, they need a very thorough cooking to be rendered edible. (But may still be too spicy for most.) Fermentation can eliminate spiciness. However, if not spicy, they can be eaten raw even.
Coral fungus found up top.
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June 2,2024 Another Work Day at SAFF

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We culled more black cherry trees from the clearing and broke them down into burnable chunks. These were infected with black knot fungus and burning them is the only way to get rid of them.

Amanita found at Northern side of the waterway. Because this has a cup shaped volva during this stage, it points to section Caesaraea, Vaginatae or Phalloideae.

After finishing our job, we walked down Fern to Ridge Trail and looked for more Black trumpets along the southern set back line. We found a few but left them hoping for rain tonight so they can grow.

We walked through the Pawpaw orchard and were satisfied with how it looked. We are making plans to get more light to these trees. There are hundreds of them as they make root suckers that are clones of the original tree.

We found a baby deer laying by the waterway at the base of a tree waiting for its mother. It was so sweet. Didn’t even lift its head as we walked by. Following directions well and staying safe. We hope mom comes back soon.

A baby deer sleeping in the forest near the waterway and pawpaw grove.
We found these ghost pipes on the northern side of the waterway at the bottom of North Trail. They are pink instead of white and have black flecks. Monotropa uniflora does not contain chlorophyll. It is parasitic to its host fungus, Russulaceae, and it saps food through the web of mycorrhizae.

We are hoping for more rain tonight so the mushrooms will grow.

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

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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.