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Spectacular Fall 2023 Mushroom Forays ... Happy Halloween!
Jackpot!
Our first official Fall forays of 2023 occurred in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest last weekend. And one of them started off with a rare find -- Sparassis crispa, the highly sought-after Cauliflower Mushroom! These grow at the base of dying fir trees. When cleaned and chunked the flesh is reminiscent (in appearance) of egg noodles. They are typically between 1-10 pounds in size (though finds as big as 100 pounds have been recorded). This was was just over 2 pounds, which snugly fills a one-gallon baggy. I'll be trying recipes this week and let you know my favorite. Deep...
"There you are, my Precious!!!" (My first Morel find of the season!)
But, hopefully not the last! I know ... mushroom-obsessed people can be a little creepy sometimes. I felt a bit like Gollum, two weekends ago, when my son Nathan and I went on our first morel-hunting foray down into Oregon, and he snapped this photo of me sneaking up on my first morel find of the season, a nice yellow (or blonde) morel. Some friends and I, pictured at left, had taken a previous foray, in mid-April, into a canyon which had a 2015 burn where we had previously found fire morels, near the town of Leavenworth. Because of the...
Why do Oysters need a bath?
Yesterday we were talking about hedgehogs (the mushroom) and today we will be talking about oysters (the mushroom). Sense a theme here? Last summer I began raising Oyster Mushrooms in "straw logs" indoors, in a room above our garage that doubles as a wine cellar and exercise room. I was growing oyster mushrooms like crazy, and very inexpensively (I'll blog sometime about that). but the experiment went south when my wife discovered that the oyster spores were making her sick every time she went up to exercise! I had a hard time believing it, at the time, but it turns...
Getting out there, part 4: What to hunt for
In previous posts, we've talked about where to hunt, when to hunt, and how to prepare for your hunt. Now it's time to get down to brass tacks. What should you hunt for? The bottom line is, if you get out in the forests during the right time of year, you may very well see dozens of varieties of mushrooms. How do you know what to harvest, and what to merely photograph? When my son Nathan and I lead hunts, invariably, within the first mile, team members are quite excited to find some very fascinating-looking mushrooms. "That's so cool!" they...
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- Admirable Boletes
- angel wings
- Armillaria ostoyae
- blonde morels
- Blue Chanterelle
- boletes
- Calvatia gigantea
- cauliflower mushroom
- chanterelles
- Chicken of the Woods
- children
- Clackamas River
- Club Mushroom
- Coltricia Perennis
- Coral Mushroom
- Crimini Mushrooms
- cultivation
- Elfin Saddle
- Enoki
- Exercise
- fall mushrooms
- Fat Jacks
- forest safety
- geocaching
- Gifford Pinchot National Forest
- golden chanterelles
- Gyromitra esculenta
- H-Mart
- hedgehogs
- Honey Mushroom
- Humongous Fungus
- hunting
- King Boletes
- King Trumpet
- lion's mane
- Lobster Mushroom
- lobsters
- Malheur National Forest
- maple logs
- matsutake
- morels
- mushroom hunt
- mushroom worker's lung
- national forests
- national parks
- Oregon
- Oyster
- Oyster Mushrooms
- permits
- polypores
- Porcinis
- private property
- Puffball Mushrooms
- Radagast
- Ramaria
- shaggy ink cap
- shaggy mane
- Shaggy Parasols
- Slippery Jacks
- Snowbank Morels
- Sparassis crispa
- spring mushrooms
- state parks
- straw logs
- Tiger Mountain
- White Button Mushrooms
- White Chanterelles
- White Shimeji
- yellow morels
- Zeller's Boletes
