Summer Mushroom Hunting

I'm on a see food diet.  If I see food I eat it.  I also love to cook it in interesting ways.  A couple years ago an online friend got me interested in wild mushrooms.  And not the funny ones!  I love mushrooms and the idea of eating what I find is incredibly appealing to I bought some guides, hit some websites, and I'm trying to safely pursue this challenging hobby.

Here is this months collection.  Again, I missed morel season.  But then, I have no idea how to spot morals.  We've been collecting in town and the yard but my big spot is the Dickson Point Campground and fish pond at Glennifer Lake about 30 minutes from home: Dickson Point Campground.  There's a great abundance of interesting mushrooms in the bush and meadows.  I have confidently identified the most common ones I find as Leccinum but I'm working to determine if they are Leccinum Boreale or Leccinum Insigne (Aspen Bolette).  I'm working on determining which but in the mean time I've dried a few pounds.  We find a lot of big ones nearly 20 cm but they tend to be very full of maggots.  The little young ones like these are quite free of extra protein.

The giveaways in identification are the clear pore tubes on the underside, the scabs on the stalk, and the orange cap.  I sure wish I could find some king bolettes (Boletus Edulis) but no luck so far.

This big polypore has been on the base of this white spruce at the site for a couple of years.  I didn't want to cut such a happy shroom to do a spore print so I'm quite unsure what it might be.  Next trip I'll cut off one of it's small pals and try for an identification.

We also found a few other interesting ones under the spruce.  I took some pictures and one sample but it didn't make it home in good enough condition to indentify.  It's got the remnants of a veil and it's gilled so that's a starting point.  My first guess is some kind of amanita.

These little guys are all over the stumps.  I've no idea what they might be yet.

But the coolest find were  three great yellow monsters all in a clump.  It was great for identification to have one completely open and one just starting to open.  The big one is 20 cm in diameter and stood 30 cm high.  Quite a beast and striking in colour.  Bright orangey yellow.  I brought the three home and did a spore print on the medium size sample.  The spores are white.  The two open ones have annuli from the left overs of the veil and the small one had it's veil intact.  All three had volvas.  The scale of the mushroom shows clearly with my son in the background.  He's become extremely interested in finding mushrooms and regularly asks when we'll go hunting again.

Here's a closeup of the annulus and gills.  And a picture of my son in the yard showing off our finds.

Working through the key in my guide book I am pretty sure this is a large amanita. Keeping going on the key and noting the shape of the volva, scales on the cap, colour and size; I think they are Amanita Muscaria (Fly Agaric).  Now these are NOT for eating.  Supposedly they were used by the Lapps to cause visions.  I think I'll skip that part.  I have more than enough visions without herbal assistance. Rogers Mushrooms on Fly Agaric

So far I haven't eaten anything.  I've got some stockpiles of aspen bolete in a jar.  Some time soon I'll try out some recipes.  It's sort of slow going since I'm doing this alone.  I want to go on one of the forays with the Alberta Mycological Society when I get my membership.  So far, the schedule hasn't worked for me.

The Yard Update for July

We've been slowly upgrading the gardens and yard since the last post.  Most of my seedlings did very well although none of the cucumbers or melons survived.  Either I put them out too early and they got a chill or I didn't feed them enough.  The tomatoes and peppers started very slowly and I decided to feed them aggressively.  This made a huge difference.  I think the problem was we used very cheap soil bought on sale and it was low on nutrients.

I built a seat around our birch and have been using it for the potted plants.  A very lovely improvement although it's not being used as a seat right now.  I'm working on some plant stands in the garage based on redesigned antiques and using scrap wood.  When those are done I'll update with pictures.

We've got mix and match pots :)  Garage sales and leftovers from buying plants on sale will have to do for now.  It takes time but we have that.

The garden under the lodgepole pine is doing wonderful.  A few cubic meters of compost spread throughout seems to be giving a huge boost to growth.  We've got some weed problems since the compost is full of seeds but that's coming along.  The lilies are amazing and the hostas just love the location.  Choosing mostly native plants that love the shade works well.  The green garden bag is front is an odd one.  A neighbour gave me some seeds for what he called "mexican radish" which he warned me spread like weeds.  Supposedly they make big read spicy pods.  So far I have no idea what that plant could be.  My google-fu was inadequate to figure them out.

My wife found a wonderful use for some old drinking horns we had hanging around.  They've been in cupboards for years.

And the last work in progress is the dry rock retaining wall.  The local gravel pit let us pick over the leftover scrap pile for free.  It's a heavy load for the old truck but some really neat stuff: petrified wood, dozens of big pink and white quartz, and something with some shells.  I'm no geologist but I'm going to get a guide book on local minerals.   Now I really want to know what those are.

Gardening 2012 - seedlings

It's a bit sad that I haven't posted here in 2 years. Well, I'm going to start again. And I might as well start with this spring's first project of significance. The gardens. April started cold and snowy and it seemed we wouldn't get spring. But we all know (at least those who live here) that if you don't like Alberta weather just wait a few hours. It will change. My son and I needed a project one day and I decided to change how I do my gardens. We bought seeds and a seedling kit and started the long season growing plants inside. It was fun: pumpkins, melons, tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers.

Two weeks ago we did our transplanting.  It was very handy that I'd scrounged this huge rolling cart from an old job.  The damn thing was filling up the garage and I was almost ready to toss it and then I realized it's perfect for hardening the seedlings by rolling in and out of the garage for night time.  Just in case of frost :)   This year we are going to try bag gardens for vegetables.  There isn't really a good spot for a permanent garden in our yard since it's all north exposure.  But the bags will do fine on the driveway or corners of the deck.

And best of all, re-using old junk.  Check out my sister's ancient pram we've had for 30 years.  It's a nice planter!  I look forward to home grown veges this year.