Yum!

The warm sunshine yesterday really brought them along.

That's a lot of mushrooms from such a small space.

I'm still not ready to head into the woods. I don't think that
conditions are right yet. When I dug out my horseradish during Holy
Week to prepare hrin for the Easter basket there was still traces of
snow in the orchard. My rhubarb is coming up, but I've yet to see an
asparagus spear poking above the mulch in the garden. Rhubarb is a
good sign but asparagus is better.

 

by Joe  Contact Me

Peeper Frogs

Last night I heard the first peeper frogs of the season. That's a good sign that the frost is out of the ground.

At first I thought that John's posting was an April Fools joke but then I checked the calendar and it's still March. As this is Easter Tuesday of Bright Week I was headed to church and I was only able to take a quick look for the mushrooms. I didn't find any and I figured that John had a lot of brass to pick mushrooms in someone's yard, especially the club's president, without asking! This afternoon, my curiosity still piqued, I was able to take a better look around and lo and behold there they were hiding among the crocus in the front yard. They're still pretty small but I took a photo just to be able to prove that they are there.

by Joe  Contact Me

Happy Easter

I had not been checking on my mushroom kit, Holy Week is a busy time for me, but this morning I went into the garage and had a pleasant surprise. This group will not be as large as the last group but fresh mushrooms are always a treat. If only I could grow morels this way.

by Joe  Contact Me

Our first meeting of the year!

I was pleasantly surprised to see so many people at our first meeting. Hopefully a harbinger of good things to come. There were a number of new faces in the crowd. I'm optimistic that a good number of those "first timers" will join us for Fungi, Fun and Friends!

George Yakulis had an excellent presentation on using a compass and GPS. I'm exploring some freeware for my Garmin GPS and I'll have more info posted on that at a later date.

The only thing missing at the meeting was the usual table full of mushrooms gathered by the members. Next month I suspect that our mycologists will have their hands full.

We also had some excellent snacks. I was especially fond of the Buffalo chicken dip.

Last of all we had some really great door prizes, two mushroom kits and a compass.

I'm already looking forward to next month's meeting. When do you suppose someone will come up with the season's first morel? My rule of thumb is that the morels fruit about the same time the asparagus makes it's appearance in my garden.

by Joe  Contact Me

E-mail addresses

As you can tell I like to communicate to our members thru the website and e-mail. Today I e-mailed reminders that our first meeting is next Tuesday the 15th of March at Beechwood Farms. A bunch of them came back to me as undeliverable. If you change your e-mail or snail mail address keep us posted so that we can easily get in touch with you.

by Joe  Contact Me

Update on the oyster mushrooms

It doesn't look like I'm going to get any more oyster mushrooms for awhile. It appeared that the kit was going to produce a bushel full but the buds are drying up even though the kit is moist. I may moisten it just a bit and tighten up the plastic wrap to see if I can jump start it again.

We'll be into the mushroom and gardening season soon. I've started some of my seeds for the garden in flats. I'm running a bit behind on that. With all of that snow on the ground it was easier to think about cross country skiing than mushrooms or gardening. I still have a lot of fruit trees to prune so I'll be spending some time outdoors. But unfortunately the yard is a sea of mud.

I guess our mushroom season officially begins with our first meeting on March 15th. I look forward to seeing you there.

by Joe  Contact Me

Photography Contest

I've been having fun taking photos of my oyster mushrooms. Taking mushroom photos can be fun and you could win a prize if you enter the WPMC photo contest. You don't have to be a professional photographer to win a prize. You just need to take some interesting photos that catch our judges eye.

by Joe  Contact Me