Green highlands foraging

[canniption]

I’ve only ever found one chicken of the woods and it was probably my favorite mushroom I’ve ever eaten. I’ve been a chef for 25 years and would love to find these. I’m going to try and inoculate some logs this year

I've found thousands of morels throughout the years and I love them still,but finding one chicken of the woods is much more productive and satisfying.you'll get several meals from a good sized one.they are my favorite after morels.

 

[Green Highland]

i normally find them during turkey season here, like NOW! but have not found one the past two seasons. my "patches" have run dry. to be honest, we have not had the sort of rains/temps that bring them out.

That’s a damn shame!

 

[Green Highland]

I've found thousands of morels throughout the years and I love them still,but finding one chicken of the woods is much more productive and satisfying.you'll get several meals from a good sized one.they are my favorite after morels.

Yeah, the one I did find netted me a few meals. Must have weighed a couple pounds. I’ll hope to find some this year

 

[Green Highland]

These Reishi were

from last fall. More medicinal fungi. I make teas from these and the Turkey tail and drink them daily.

 

[Dr.Mantis]

These Reishi were View attachment 18838449 from last fall. More medicinal fungi. I make teas from these and the Turkey tail and drink them daily.

Those are beauties!

I’m getting ready to fruit my first sawdust block of ganoderma. How do you make your tea? I’ve never made it before.

 

[sneezydog]

Found some what i hope is edible and not a galerina marginata. https://www.mushroomexpert.com/kuehneromyces_mutabilis.html
Crazy how similar they are... waiting to get some lye powder to test them..

Kuehneromyces mutabilis

 

[Cantharellus]

You must be pretty hard up collecting the sheathed woodtuft. I have been foraging 50 years and never met or heard of anyone say they couldn't pass that one up lol.

Dr. Mantis morels have a very wide range please tell me more about where they don't grow. Last time I moved all the locals said nobody looks for them they don't grow here. Six years later I have several spots and have found a pattern.

Armedoldhippy if you can't find morels in TN then you aren't looking in the right places. If the weather gets too hot and dry for the grey or yellow start researching the black morel as they grow earlier in the spring when there is generally more moisture. I have found them while there is still snow on the ground in multiple years here. You have to be relentless and not give up and eventually you will be rewarded.

There is a progress map at thegreatmorel.com they do it every year and its a big help if you are new and don't have any spots. You will at least have a good idea of when to look which is 50% of the battle.

 

[Dr.Mantis]

You must be pretty hard up collecting the sheathed woodtuft. I have been foraging 50 years and never met or heard of anyone say they couldn't pass that one up lol.

Dr. Mantis morels have a very wide range please tell me more about where they don't grow. Last time I moved all the locals said nobody looks for them they don't grow here. Six years later I have several spots and have found a pattern.

Armedoldhippy if you can't find morels in TN then you aren't looking in the right places. If the weather gets too hot and dry for the grey or yellow start researching the black morel as they grow earlier in the spring when there is generally more moisture. I have found them while there is still snow on the ground in multiple years here. You have to be relentless and not give up and eventually you will be rewarded.

There is a progress map at thegreatmorel.com they do it every year and its a big help if you are new and don't have any spots. You will at least have a good idea of when to look which is 50% of the battle.

Huh? I don’t know.

If you are referring to my comment about ‘don’t grow near me’, I was being selfish - in that I’ve never found any on my acreage. I’ve seen them at the local farmers market though, but I think they are sourced from the local mountains where there is more moisture.

 

[sneezydog]

Not sure if they are the right species... have you ever eaten a sheathed woodtuft?

 

[Green Highland]

Found some what i hope is edible and not a galerina marginata. https://www.mushroomexpert.com/kuehneromyces_mutabilis.html
Crazy how similar they are... waiting to get some lye powder to test them..

Kuehneromyces mutabilis

I tend to stay away from these and enoki. Even though I can identify wild enoki pretty easily because of the obvious black and velvet like base of the stipe, they grow at the same time and the same place as deadly galerina and I just avoid them in general. Enoki whe. Cultivated and Harvested without light stay white and get elongated, pretty cool how different environments bring out different traits.

 

[Green Highland]

Went to my spot to get some wild leeks(ramps) today. I happen to live in an area where these grow like weeds and nobody really forages for them. They are one of my favourite things to forage and eat. I’ve got a few football size fields of these growing in some well established maple forest about 5 minute walk through my back yard. I harvest 1 leek for every 20 I see and I can get about 20 pounds a year from this spot alone. If I went looking for other patches In the area I could probably get 100’s of pounds.

 

[Green Highland]

Those are beauties!

I’m getting ready to fruit my first sawdust block of ganoderma. How do you make your tea? I’ve never made it before.

I bring water to a boil and then steep the reishi at low temperature for a couple hours. I let it cool strain and freeze the liquid off until I finish the next stages. I the. Dehydrate the steeped mushrooms to get rid of excess water. Then I soak the previously steeped but now dry mushrooms in ethanol for 4-6 weeks to extract what the water method couldn’t . Then I strain the alcohol from the mushrooms and use a machine called extract craft to evaporate the alcohol by about half while reclaiming the ethanol while at the same time building a concentrated mushroom tincture.as it’s done in a vacuum I get up to 98 percent of the alcohol used back minus what I leave in the tincture which is reduced by 50-65 percent.Then I mix the water extraction with the ethanol tincture. Then they get canned and preserved in 1 litre mason jars for the years. I go through about 1 litre per week.

 

[sneezydog]

Thanks for sharing. pretty cool you can reclaim the ethanol.
Ive never eaten a sheathed woodtuft for the record.

 

[Green Highland]

Thanks for sharing. pretty cool you can reclaim the ethanol

I use this thing. Was designed to make cannabis concentrates. https://www.extractcraft.com/product/etoh-pro/

 

[Cantharellus]

Thanks for sharing. pretty cool you can reclaim the ethanol.
Ive never eaten a sheathed woodtuft for the record.

You are not missing much. Its been a long time but I have tried just about all of the edibles. Its right up there with pheasant back and old man of the woods lol.

 

[Cantharellus]

I have to give a shout out to this kid from PA on you tube. His channel is called Learn Your Land and he spews out all kinds of interesting factoids in his presentations. If you forage you should check him out.

 

[Green Highland]

I have to give a shout out to this kid from PA on you tube. His channel is called Learn Your Land and he spews out all kinds of interesting factoids in his presentations. If you forage you should check him out.

I don’t mind the pheasant backs when they’re really young. I fry em up golden brown with lots garlic. I love the cucumber smell they put off. Not the Best but I will eat them a few times a year. I’ll def check out that channel. Cheers!

 

[Dr.Mantis]

I bring water to a boil and then steep the reishi at low temperature for a couple hours. I let it cool strain and freeze the liquid off until I finish the next stages. I the. Dehydrate the steeped mushrooms to get rid of excess water. Then I soak the previously steeped but now dry mushrooms in ethanol for 4-6 weeks to extract what the water method couldn’t . Then I strain the alcohol from the mushrooms and use a machine called extract craft to evaporate the alcohol by about half while reclaiming the ethanol while at the same time building a concentrated mushroom tincture.as it’s done in a vacuum I get up to 98 percent of the alcohol used back minus what I leave in the tincture which is reduced by 50-65 percent.Then I mix the water extraction with the ethanol tincture. Then they get canned and preserved in 1 litre mason jars for the years. I go through about 1 litre per week.

Thank you!

Back when I was a kid I found some ganoderma species fruiting on some dead hemlock in some old growth forest in way north wi. They were as big as about half a large pizza! Ever since, I’ve been fascinated by them. The culture I have is easy to grow, from reading I gather it’s a pretty tough mycelium and my observations are inline with that.

Here’s another morel sawdust block I’m growing out. It’s interesting with the morel, for a few days it seems like nothing is happening, then very quickly things take off. This one is about 12 days old since liquid inoculation.

 

[Green Highland]

Some pics of some edible mushies found last fall. Starting top left and going clockwise, coral tooth, yellow foots, honey mushroom, wood blewits, painted sillius and hedge hogs. Going to head out today and start to hunt morels.

 

[Green Highland]

Wild ginger from last summer.