Fungus Among Us.

 

The upside to this rain soaked summer has been the prolific varieties of fungus popping up amongst the landscape day after day. As you may have picked up from previous blog posts, mushrooms are a big fascination and area of discovery on the homestead.  From inoculating logs, burying spawn plugs, making mushroom beds and diving into indoor cultivation along with constantly wandering the landscape and working on identifying our findings. This summer has been full of discoveries and dinner delicacies as we hone our foraging skills and broaden our identification methods through research via books, websites and apps.

As a self proclaimed newbie to the mycosphere, I am not going to add many labels to the following pictures in an effort to not share false information about our finds.  I would urge anyone reading this that finds themselves interested in foraging to approach the subject of ingesting with hesitancy and doubt as there are some species of fungus that can cause severe sickness and in very rare cases death if done so in a haphazard and careless way. That being said I urge you to dive in deep and learn about the magic of the fungi kingdom. It is full of rabbitholes of mythology, history and unexplored worlds of the magical networks that we are just recently learning about. 

As you can see from this array of pics, there has been quite the abundance of specimens to dig into including this Wooly Chanterelle that was our most recent find.

Occasionally if there is an abundance of specimens, I'll collect a few to get closer inspections of and sometimes create a spore print and observe color variations as the fruiting bodies evolve in a more controlled environment.

The positive side to all this observing and exploring is finding positive ID's of some pretty delicious finds including this flush of oyster mushrooms. 

Along with some oysters we have found a small abundance of chanterelles and my favorite find has been a handful of delicious lobster mushrooms!

Along with foraging we have been successful with a few indoor cultivations including this yummy flush of Royal Trumpets. With a busy gardening season the indoor portion of our mushroom project has taken a pause but I am planning on starting some more cultures for indoor projects as the autumn arrives and winter makes being inside a bit more appealing!

A Posy of Blooms.

So with all the rain and slugs we had our veggies set back a bit as most growers in New England but we still managed to get a decent harvest of snap peas, bowlfuls of lettuce and leafy greens along with garlic scapes, shiitake mushrooms and bountiful herbs. Somedays it seemed the season was going to spiral into the worst of my gardening life, but alas some scattered sunny days have opened and the summer onslaught of veggies is delayed but arriving as I scourer our photos to pick out some of the winning blooms that have occurred in June and July. More on veggies in an upcoming post but for now...

FLOWERS! 

Variegated Yellow Sweet Iris

Edens Perfume Peony

Shasta Daisy

One of Cassis' request for this garden season was to dip our toes into the world of roses and dahlias. We picked out this variety after scouring the local nurseries and after selecting this variety we found a nice spot just in view of the kitchen sink window. That way we could keep an eye on them and also enjoy the blooms during our daily dish washing.

Lady of Shallots Rose

Camelot Rose Foxglove

Along with some stunning blooms, we have been busy filling in our landscape with many native flowers for the local pollinators and to increase the biodiversity of the homestead in general. It is a project that is very enjoyable watching the way the different plants adapt to the environment and observing the beneficial insects interacting with them.

Chocolate Chip Bugleweed

Jacobs Climb Bee Balm

Meadow Lupine

Eastern Pasqueflower

Queen Anne's Lace

Earlybird Purple Columbine

Yellow Evening Primrose

Coronation Yellow Yarrow

Himalayan Pincushion

Queen of the Prairie

Sweet Mock Orange

Marsh Mallow

Butterfly Weed Milkweed

Blue Flag Iris

California Poppy

Calendula

Orchid Cream Nasturtium

Zinnias

Horizon Sunflower

Project Dahlia is in full swing at the LocalRootz Homestead... we started a handful of tubers that we sourced from Fleur Farm in VT & Bumbleroot Farm just down the road in Windham and we are now in the end of July and early August starting to reap the benefits of the hardwork! We are taking a class on flower farming at Bumbleroot this week and are excited to expand the varieties and knowledge as we go down the rabbit hole of flower growing together. 

Strawberries & Cream Dahlia

Hazel has been pretty excited about the stunning blooms as well!

Brown Sugar Dahlia

Strawberries & Cream Dahlia

Cornell Bronze Dahlia

Lindas Baby Dahlia

Its been a weekly project to fill the vases around the house and we also just grabbed a few hanging racks to work on some dried bouquets and arrangements as the season progresses!

Stay tuned for more flower fun...

Mystery Day Dahlia... never got a shot of this one in the wild as a big storm made it an urgent cut but hoping for more blooms from this variety soon!

The Lindas Baby has been my favorite and I can't help but stop and stare at them anytime I pass by.

We really enjoy making these little unassuming arrangements by just taking a early morning stroll with a pair of pruners and a bit of creative inspiration. This one was just a touch of coleus tops along with some hares foot clover that was growing along our long meandering dirty driveway accented by a rose that was smiling from the window.