Mushrooms are a-flushin'!
 

Last fall, I posted pics of the mushroom beds I had made in the front yard. They got started a month apart which I thought was bad, but so many are coming up in the Octagon, it will help spread the crop. I've already sautéed a couple batches, but here is a partial flush and how it went into my pot roast. I have to harvest the same day they come up or they will start to open as you can see happened here. These mushrooms will get the size of a dinner plate if left alone. The stems themselves are an inch thick.

Raw, they have a nutty flavor; perfect for salads. As they cook, they smell and taste like white potatoes! However, when steamed as I did here, they get a garlicky/oniony flavor, so no more in future roasts. All for sautéing, yay! :goteam:





Piled on top of the roast



All cooked down and ready to serve. Homemade pot roast with home grown mushrooms!

Re: Mushrooms are a-flushin'!
 

Ok, you got me! What sort are they? We are a few miles north and would love to grow them as we eat lots, collect some in wild rest from the store.
PJKFARM@GMAIL.COM
tHANKS
And they really look awesome! And seems like you used wood chips (of which we have massive amounts).

Re: Mushrooms are a-flushin'!
 

Re: Mushrooms are a-flushin'!
 

Thanks! :bananas_b

Those are red winecaps. I ordered the mycelium from North Spore, in Maine last fall. They require hardwood chips, not pine, and they must be fresh not breaking down already. I put down cardboard, then a layer of lathe shavings (maple and cherry), then a layer of mycelium, followed by some more shavings, mycelium and the top layer of chips a few inches thick. For the other bed, I ran out of shavings, so I used straw and chips instead.

Further north is better, as these are cooler weather mushrooms. They will go dormant over the summer and then flush a second time this fall. Where are you located, VA?

Re: Mushrooms are a-flushin'!
 

Thanks Mary! :08:

Re: Mushrooms are a-flushin'!
 

PJK Farm located South Riding, Va (Northern Va.). My wife looked at pic and told be they were borowik in Polish and collected in the woods, speckled light, and were a favorite of her family. I will harvest very little in the wild as too many look alikes, but with plenty of wood chips, will give these a try. Borowik (called the King of the mushrooms) though are dangerous to harvest in the wild, lots of people got poisoned with them as there are some real look alikes. Luckily her mother knew the right ones:-)

Re: Mushrooms are a-flushin'!
 

PS Thanks for the source info! Always like a recommendation. We grow a basjoo jungle with ensete, and a few edibles which will come out of the root cellar couple of weeks. We get a few bananas each year (plantains mainly) as we put those that flower into a warmed up cold frame to ripen.

Re: Mushrooms are a-flushin'!
 

Ah, dzien dobre!

There are a few surefire ways to tell them apart from the lookalikes. They have what looks like a crown around the stem on the underside and the gills are purple. The spores will leave purple spots as well, if I remember correctly.

Re: Mushrooms are a-flushin'!
 

I remember the excitement I experienced when I first tasted the first wild mushroom I picked along with my father as we returned home from the field we were working on. After that, I asked my father a million questions about mushrooms every day and found out that not all mushrooms are edible, which scared me as a child.
Now that I'm writing this, I'm a grown man, and I can say that I go on a mushroom hunt with my wife every weekend. After rainy days, we often found a lot of fresh mushrooms.
My wife also received organic mushrooms from a friend a few days ago, which are also very useful for various pains and conditions that a man can experience. You can check out the lions mane mushroom, which I use whenever I have a headache.