Mushrooms & Funghi
Funghi walks and Shiitake dowel plugs for home growing!
Ever since I learnt that inky caps were both edible and extremely tasty I've wanted to learn more and expand my list of edible free food. So when I heard that our local national trust grounds had a morning funghi walk I was all signed up and all set to go. For less than a tenner, we were given a great tour of edible and inedible mushrooms and funghi and had a great yomp around the grounds. Wherever you are, check out on the web if there are any funghi walks near you as I'm sure you'll learn tonnes and have a nice morning out. The top tip that I learnt was to scratch the surface of any common field mushroom (Agaricus campestris) and make sure that the scratch doesn't turn bright yellow, otherwise it means you've picked a poisonous funghi.
We managed to get to see various Ganoderma, puff balls, waxy caps, various bracket fungus as well as field mushrooms and inky caps. Surprisingly this was after being told that the conditions weren't great and that there weren't many varieties present at the time due to it being fairly dry recently. Following the lovely Sunday morning stroll, I felt compelled to pick up 'Marvellous Mushrooms' which are wooden dowels impregnated with (in our case) Shiitake spores. You simply drill some holes in some freshly cut logs and hammer in the dowels. The pack says they will give Shiitake mushrooms for up to 3 years. I'll keep you posted!!
Of the various funghi we saw, the inky caps and field mushrooms were edible, but not the bracket funghi we saw or the puffballs (which were too small, and past their best!)
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