Selfsufficientish.com

I am off out for a bit of foraging

hoping to come back with Alexandra
nettles and plum blossom
what about in your area

Alexandra picks up loads of it
loads of nettles to
got the plum blossom I want to come back with bag of gorse to

a very good morning spent rest of afternoon cooking with it all
Alexandra and rhubarb jam
Alexandra and onion pickle
Alexandra beer
Alexandra wine
and some jusr cooed down in butter for my tea
nettle beer
nettle wine
nettle mash
plum blossom just into wine
gorse wine
gorse panna cootta
very good day over all

Well, I'm a bit puzzled as to whether I should forage at all...

There are some mushrooms growing near my house that seem to be horse mushrooms. I've checked with a good guide and they don't look like any of the poisonous species horse mushrooms can be confused with. They've also got the distinctive 'cog wheel' pattern (where the stalk goes into the cap) that you see on young horse mushrooms.

HOWEVER...according to the book, it's too early in the year for horse mushrooms! Any advice? Has anyone else seen them this early? Could it be because spring has sprung early this year?

maybe a St Georges mushroom, they are around now

Mulberries and carob pods! People actually crossed the street away from the 'ferals' (me and my three kids) playing in the carob and filling up bags full. Apparantly people just don't get nearly as excited as me (happy dances and hyperventilation) about scrounging free produce. Or more to the point, no one else has any bloody idea what it is that I am grabbing so gleefully. That suits me just fine.

Oh, and pinecones. Lots and lots of pinecones. To make lots and lots of firelighters. (it is just coming into winter here in Australia).

redglass wrote:Well, I'm a bit puzzled as to whether I should forage at all...

There are some mushrooms growing near my house that seem to be horse mushrooms. I've checked with a good guide and they don't look like any of the poisonous species horse mushrooms can be confused with. They've also got the distinctive 'cog wheel' pattern (where the stalk goes into the cap) that you see on young horse mushrooms.

HOWEVER...according to the book, it's too early in the year for horse mushrooms! Any advice? Has anyone else seen them this early? Could it be because spring has sprung early this year?

Horse mushrooms often appear in spring, I found some 2-3 weeks ago. As long as you are sensible with your ID it is difficult to get wrong. You can easily mistake horse mushrooms for the macro mushroom, but they are both good edibles.

Garry

Thanks, diggernotdreamer and fungi2bwith. I don't think they are St George's mushrooms - I did find those in the guide and thought, 'Yes!' when I saw the date....but they don't quite fit the ID. There's that cogwheel pattern for a start. If horse mushrooms appear in spring, I appear to have got myself a rather nice supply...I'll be over there later today. :-)

I found some more horse mushrooms today.

Well, I cooked and ate my mushrooms and I am still alive, so the ID was sound.

A council bloke came today with a petrol mower and cut down all the grass (and mushrooms) so I may need to wait a while for the next lot. The council are excelling themselves round here - last summer they destroyed entire hedges of first-rate blackberries.

got a load of bog myrtle flowers and became excited about the amount of flowers on the blaeberry bushes

I found my first mushrooms of the year last week - my first ever chanterelles! So I'm hoping to make it out into the local woods a few times this week to see if I can find any more. Hopefully the rain over the weekend might help.