There's been a lot going on here and I haven't had the opportunity to post for over a week. Hopefully, I'll be able to get everything organized and begin posting again.
Don't forget about the Morel Madness at Mingo Creek Park this weekend. Check out the WPMC website for details.
The WPMC website has a new look. Check it out. It looks pretty good! Liz has done some great work with the site.
I haven't found a single morel this year. :-( I plan on doing a bit of exploring today and I'll post my findings later in the day.
That's what it turned out to be, just a walk in the woods. Plus, I got to play with my g.p.s. I did learn one thing take a pen and a small notebook to mark down explanations of locations. It takes way too long to put them into the g.p.s. in the field.
Violets and fiddle heads are up. Everything's in place but the rain. There is rain in the forecast for next week but the chance of rain is only about 30 percent and that's not very good odds. If we get the rain now and the undergrowth comes roaring to life then any morels that fruit will be hard to spot. And will they be inclined to fruit under such adverse conditions?
Besides the fiddle heads I also saw the first trillium and elm tree leaves of the season.
One of my rules of thumb concerning morels is that the arrival of morels coincides with the arrival of the asparagus in my garden. Yesterday was a very good day in that regard as the first asparagus of the season somehow managed to push it's way thru very dry soil to start the season.
Of course that prompted me to take a ride and do a bit of exploring. No we didn't find a single morel but at least we found mushrooms.
Just a reminder that Tuesday is our monthly meeting at Beechwood Farms and of course we're going to be talking about morels.
When I got online this morning and looked at the calendar I realized that we are just a week away from our monthly meeting. This months topic is morels so this is a meeting that you don't want to miss.
I know that a lot of you folks are disappointed that Mike Lloyd is not going to be able to give his presentation on morels. However he has provided me with his materials for the presentation and of course our identifiers and mycologists will be there to present their views on the subject.
A snapshot of the folks who did the Fall Run walk.
Let's see a show of hands. How many of you fell to the temptation the warm days and headed out into the woods to look for morels? And how many morels did you find? That's what I thought. My wife and I went out looking and we found some corncob morels. I was going to take a photo of them but was threatened with severe bodily harm for even thinking about it.
Well we had a nice walk in the woods and a nice ride on a nice day. Maybe by next week there will be something to make some noise about. It was supposed to rain tomorrow but the forecast has changed (again). I have all of my early seeds in the garden and now the seeds like the morels need the rain to encourage them to grow.
We did find some interesting things on our walk
In the past this tree has produced morels for us. So far nothing.
We didn't find many patches of Mayapples. We did find some that were bigger than this one.
Nicest flower that we found.
It's been a busy week. The air temperature says Spring but the ground temperature has only inched up to about 47F. That's still cold but those sunny days have motivated me to put into the garden those seeds that the seed catalogs recommend be planted as soon as the ground can be worked.
Today I plan on more preparation and planting. I haven't headed out into the woods yet. I've seen some reports of people finding eating size morels but closer to home the reports have been about smaller 1/4 inch morels. If I remember correctly it will take a week to ten days, depending on the weather, for them to reach eating size. We haven't gotten any of the rain that was predicted. The sun and the wind are drying out the top layer of soil. Good for the garden and planting, not good for seed germination on the newly planted seeds and for the morels hmmm... Perhaps Sunday I'll venture out into the woods and do some exploring.
A week of warm temperatures should move things along. Hopefully the warm sun and drying winds will give me a chance to put my onions into the garden. I stuck the soil thermometer into the ground both in the "April Fool's" morel patch and in my asparagus bed and it read 40F in both places. I'm sure it's still a bit early to start the lettuce, peas and beets, although I know of folks who have tried to jump start the season. Tomorrow I'll plant my onions if the weather and soil cooperates. Nature has to run it's course here there's not a lot you can do to rush it along. My big garden news will be when the first asparagus spears show up in the garden. The morels may show up a few days before the asparagus but not in an great numbers. I have a photo of asparagus in the garden from last year dated April 22nd. My guess is that the first spears appeared a few days before that.
At the moment the progression maps show the morels well to our south so unless I feel like doing some scouting I think it would be a wast of time to head into the woods. By the way morels don't grow in my yard. Still if I keep tossing the spoiled morels and wash water out into the yard maybe some day...
A note of caution about growing oyster mushrooms in your garage. My golden retriever and my mushroom kit where sharing a two car garage. On the first fruiting the dog developed a cough and made a visit to the vet. On the second fruiting this happened again but the cough was mild and disappeared as soon and I picked the mushrooms. At this point a light went on in my head and I made a mental note. Sure enough on the next fruiting the cough came back, the mushrooms got moved to the solarium and the dog went to the vet, but needed no treatment except for his yearly booster shot.. Once the dog and mushrooms were separated the problem resolved itself.
Just when I was working on a plan to produce more oysters from the kit I lost access to my prime growing space. Oh well I don't want my good buddy to get sick again so when the kit needs broken down and rejuvenated again or when I get a new kit I may try my experiment out of doors.
I just looked at the forecast for the week. This week may set the stage for the morels. Time to begin keeping an eye on the true harbingers of the arrival of morels. It's still too early to head into the woods unless you're scouting for likely spots.
My sincere apologies to all of you serious morel hunters and mycologists.
I'm still somewhat amazed that so many fell for it hook, line and sinker. Had John not set the stage with his posting, then I probably wouldn't have even had the idea. Some people are upset, some think it funny. A good April fool's joke plays on the flaws of human nature and I used the overwhelming desire to find that first morel. There were a lot of clues in the postings that it was an April Fool's day prank, including the statement that "I was not going to head out into the woods to look for morels." The only morels that I mentioned were the "ones" that mysteriously appeared in my front yard. The weather itself, as well as the other harbingers of spring/morels are not present. There are no violets, dandelions, may apples, forsythia or other signs that the morels should be fruiting. I guess I just assumed that no one would take it serious for any amount of time, especially anyone who had hunted for morels before, because it was obvious to me that there just couldn't be any morels around and I've only been hunting for morels for two years. I would not have played such a prank if we were closer to the appearance of morels in this area. It was not intended as a cruel hoax, just an innocent April Fool's joke that played on the desire to be the first to find a morel. I see that my joke did do the one thing I wanted, which was have everyone looking forward to hunting for morels.
I was pleased that so many of you visited my "On The Stump" web site. In the future you'll find more bits of news and my ramblings about mushrooms, my garden and other bats that fly out of my belfry.
You can be assured that all future morel sightings that I post will be legitimate.
This month's WPMC meeting, on the third Tuesday of April (the 19th) at Beechwood Farms, will be all about finding and identifying morels and avoiding the poisonous look alikes.
Joe
Yesterday I just had to take a walk in the woods. I didn't expect to find much so I wasn't disappointed. Wild onions are popping up, but I found them around the house in February. The ramps are making their appearance, but they are still very small. I found a skunk cabbage just poking out of the ground, some very fragrent peppermint but not much else in the way of spring greenery.
Morels, I think they are still in a deep sleep dreaming dreams of sunny spring days.
Woodpeckers? Not far from this tree I found an elm with the bark just beginning to come off. I'll pay that spot another visit in a few weeks.
The mushrooms that I found are pictured here.
Happy April Fool’s Day!
I don’t know what John thought he saw in my yard. All I found were rocks that looked like mushrooms. John set the stage, but I assembled the props. My first "clue" in my previous e-mail was that "I cut them in half and dried them". Notice that the morels in the photo look a bit like cardboard cutouts. I guarantee you that the morels in the photo were real.
After that things just kind of got out of hand. But look closely at my posted pictures, there are some small clues that you were being set up.
Anyway, I’m sure that I’ve piqued everyone’s interest and now we are all hopeful for a very fruitful and bountiful morel picking season in a couple of weeks.
