not quite a plant, the morel of the story...

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by songbird, May 13, 2016.

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  1. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    i was out doing a bit of puttering around today and came across these
    in one of the gardens...

    [​IMG]

    a few years ago my brother gave me a few morels and told me when
    i was done rinsing them to take the rinse water and put it where i
    wanted them to grow.

    instead of limiting it to one location i picked a half dozen. so far
    two spots have grown morels (it has taken a few years) and while
    i can't say for sure it was the spores from what i put there or from
    the various other mulches we've used, it's nice to see some more
    fungal diversity around here.

    :)
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2017
  2. 9anda1f

    9anda1f Administrator Staff Member

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    Wow, what a find! I wonder if that would work (rinse water) with store-bought morels? Actually, I might try this technique with other species of store-bought mushrooms. Thanks for the tip (and thank your brother too)!
     
  3. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    in my searches there are plenty of places offering morel spore kits and such on-line.

    the reading about their life cycle makes me realize how lucky i have been. now they are
    starting to figure out how to grow them in captivity. i will not go that far, i just have no
    space for such projects here... take nature at her finest when she provides... these are
    getting rained on again so if they are fruiting/sporing then it will be spread around some
    more. i'm going to see how long i can leave them out there before picking and eating
    them...

    and again the rinse water trick. :)
     
  4. Flatland

    Flatland Member

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    The look very interesting but I have to admit to being a coward when it comes to fungi. Too many of them look like each other to be able to tell which is which which is poisonous and which is fine to eat
     
  5. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    that is one of the great things about morels, they are fairly easy to identify
    so you know you are eating safe mushrooms.

    we found another morel in back, so that now makes three places we've had
    them show up over the past few years. i would never expect them to pop
    up on the berm, which is a pile of sand covered by some kind of barrier
    (plastic or weed barrier i don't know) and then large rocks. over the years
    the rocks have been filled in with pine needles and cedar tree droppings.

    we ate all of them on a pizza the other night. unfortunately i wasn't inside
    when Ma cleaned the morels and she didn't know i wanted the rinse water
    to spread around more... oops. so down the drain it went. all i can hope
    is that they all dropped plenty of spores. the one in back was older so had
    more time to do it's thing.
     
  6. Bryant RedHawk

    Bryant RedHawk Junior Member

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    Very nice, I hope to have time to go hunting for them next spring, this year was a literal wash out here.
    I have a few places where they should grow. I have heard from some of the morel hunters here that you should use a mesh bag to carry them so the spores will escape as you continue your picking. I plan on using some impermeable membrane bags so I can get home with the spores and the mushrooms.
     
  7. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    we had some show up this year again.

    growing in the limestone mulch of all places:

    [​IMG]


    plus, while i was at it i added some other fungi/mushrooms to the page:

    https://www.anthive.com/project/fungi/
     

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