April showers bring May flowers! Here is a mayapple plant blooming out, you’ll see lots of these, along with bloodroot, trout lily, iris, periwinkle, violet, chickweed and so many other flowers gracing the forest floor. With the morels moving on, it’s small window of rest and reset before the big mushroom season kicks off. It’s a great time as a forger to focus on some plants and simply admiring the season here in the mountains.
Markets: Black Mountain- 9-12, Saturdays I’ll be there 5/6 and 5/27
Yancey County/Burnsville: Saturdays 8:30-12:30 I’ll be there 5/13 and 5/20
East Asheville: Fridays 3-6, I’ll be there all month.
Weaverville: Wednesdays 3-6, I’ll be there 5/3, 5/17, 5/24 and 5/31
New Product: Ramp Sea Salt. Made with wild (sustainably) foraged Ramps and natural sea salt. Ramps have a strong garlic like smell and flavor and go good on everything! $7 a pack.
Monthly Special:$5 off Turkey Tail teabagsand half pounds. Turkey Tail is perhaps the most researched mushroom in the US. It’s known for it’s cancer fighting properties, helping improve gut health, immune system boost, fighting fatigue and anti-inflammatory benefits. Set of four teabags, each one makes a quart of tea and can be used twice.
Highlight on the pheasant back mushroom. Usually when you see these mushrooms, it’s a good indictor that morels have moved on. These pretty mushrooms smell just like cucumbers or watermelon rinds and taste great when young and fresh, trying to eat the older, fanned out ones is tough and bitter. Also little Reishi babies are popping out early this year. It’ll take a few weeks for them to grow and maybe a few more before they mature. You can slice off the outer edges and sauté them, just don’t forage the whole mushroom at this stage, it still has to release it’s spores and gain all that great medicinal goodness!
The elusive morels are moving north, which means finding them here in the mountains of WNC. I’ve been doing some full day forages down in South Carolina but this month I’ll be hunting the forest backyard of the Blue Ridge. Typically I find the black morels in our area, they are distinct with their black ridge lines on the cap, like the one pictured above. This year has been amazing one for the morels, so get out and see if you can’t spot some! Besides hunting morels, this month is the official start of market season. I really enjoy being at the various markets in the area, meeting people face to face, connecting to different communities and spreading the mushroom love. Here’s this months markets:
Monthly Special:$5 off Lions Mane Teabags. Lions Mane is a highly medicinal mushroom that helps improve cognitive function, fights dementia and alzheimer’s, mood, heart health, inflammation and nerve damage.
April is all about morels, gettem while you can! Mountain hunting for morels is different than the low lands. Out here hillsides and slopes replace drainage and bottom lands. Also poplar trees seem to produce more than ash trees. It’s all about figuring out the patterns and puzzles of these lovelys. I’ve still found oysters out, witches butter and other jelly mushrooms as well. New on the scene last month and continuing this month are pheasant back mushrooms, they have beautiful patterns on their caps and they have a strong scent of cucumber. They are best edible when small. Lastly are the ramps. Out here lots of folks know and love the ramps. These strong garlic-like greens are delicious in almost any meal. Like the morels they have a short window of growth, lasting a few weeks only. Being careful not to over harvest and also use sustainable methods is important for their survival. I’m excited to get some back in my wild mushroom salts! It’s been yet another great year for the morels so far, let’s keep it going!!
To me it’s hardly felt like winter this year, as far as the weather goes. Winter can be seen as a length of time, for many mushroom hunters it’s that space between the last lions mane and winter oysters, to when the magic morels begin to grow, and here we are! This month will be the official start to the spring season and with the temperatures being so lovely, the morels should be in full form and abundant. Typically I don’t sell many morels, I usually eat them, give some away or dehydrate them, however this year I plan to forage much more than last year, so if you visit the farmer markets I’ll probably have some for sale. This is the start to the mushroom season and we should see them popping out everywhere real soon.
Markets:
Weaverville Tailgate Market: Wedensdays 3-6 @ Weaverville community center I’ll be there 3/8, 3/22, 3/29
Taste of Local: 3/24 from 11-1 at Warren Wilson College.
New Product/Monthly Special: I’m pretty excited for this new blend! Wither your trying to keep your mind sharp, need more focus for studying, or trying to prevent Dementia and Alzheimer’s, I’ve combined Lions Mane, Cordyceps and Maitake mushrooms together to create a master brain booster. All three are known to improve cognitive function, mood, focus, help to prevent cognitive decline, create new brain cells, provide energy and boost the immune system. More and more research with mushrooms is coming out and the results are all promising. All month long this new tincture blend will be $25 for a 1oz and $35 for a 2oz. The regular price will be $30 for a 1oz and $40 for a 2oz, starting in April.
Getting out in spring is always exciting, I love the smells, the flowers popping, the lush greenery starting and the great morel hunt! The last few years I’ve added quite a few new areas, thanks to a good, good friend who has the radar dialed in. The season usually starts with the little ones, and for some areas that’s all it may produce. In other areas you may find big and small and in between in the same location. There are four types of morels here in WNC. Blondes or yellow morels, grays, blacks and half free morels. There is a false morel but I haven’t seen them here in our region, just up north. Each is distinct in look, coloring but they all taste the same to me. The false morels are toxic, they are pictured last and you can see they look very different. True morels are hollow, as pictured above, false are not. Morels are often associated with trees, poplar, elm, apple, are three big ones, as well as environment. A big factor to as when morels begin is the soil temperature, calling for at least five consecutive days of a soil temp 55 degrees or above, there’s some great soil temp websites you can find online. There’s also the great morel website, where you can see where people have found them and when: https://www.thegreatmorel.com/morel-sightings/ Though morels are all the rage, there are other mushrooms out at this time. Your likely to see some jelly mushrooms, wood ear, witches butter, amber jelly roll, all which are edible. Also early pheasant back mushrooms that taste great when young but get bitter with age, they are have a very distinct cap pattern and smell like cucumbers, some say if you see these that’s the end of the morel season but I disagree and have found them at the same times. The coral mushrooms will also start showing up, some are edible and some are not, always stay away from yellow corals, the only ones I eat are the white, crown tipped corals. Turkey Tails are pretty much a year round polypore that are super medicinal but not edible, making a tea or tincture is the way to use these beauties. If we are lucky, chicken of the wood could start towards the end of the month as well. It’s bright orange color gives it away, with two varieties, one being yellow on the pore side and the other white underneath. Happy morel hunting y’all and happy spring!!
Into the year we go……February is a true winter month in the mountains and it’s also my birth-day month! I’ll be traveling down south for the first week, to walk the empty beach, camp, kayak and celebrate 45 years on earth. Orders will be delayed until I return on the 6th. I plan to get in some chaga hunting, forage more turkey tail and scout some potential morel areas upon return. These months before spring are a great time to get to know your trees. Identifying poplar, elm and apple trees is one of the keys to finding morels in the coming months. There’s still many mushrooms popping out in the cold conditions, even though you may not be eating them all, just out discovering these varieties can be fun!
New collaborations: This year is off to a great start with two new collaborations under way. Vending at tailgate markets has introduced me to many amazing makers and with each one I meet, I wonder, can mushrooms go with that! Botanical Bones is a local, super natural dog treat company here in Asheville. Their treats are all plant based and made with love. I’m excited to provide local chaga for their ‘inner glow’ treats.
Also there’s a new kombucha maker on the scene locally, Terra Farmstead Kombucha. Not only do they make some wonderful kombucha but they run an amazing farm not far from where I live. They’ll be using my reishi, chaga and turkey tail in some very interesting batches of kombucha that will include pine, juniper, and lemon, also cardamom, purple sweet potato, mace and orange in another, yum! You can find them on instagram.
Markets: Weaverville winter market: Wedensdays 3-6 @weaverville community center 60 lakeshore drive…I’ll be there 2/8 and 2/22
Monthly Special:$10 off all Indian Pipe tinctures. Monotropa uniflora, aka Indian Pipe is a wild flower that needs mushrooms for nourishment. These little beauties’ feed off the underground mycelia network. They lack chlorophyll and their petals are completely translucent. Quite an amazing little flower and they make powerful medicine. Indian Pipe/Ghost Pipe is a sedative, helping with sleep issues, mild pain issues, it helps improve migraine headaches, helps treat seizures, chronic muscle spasms and can have a very calming effect. Some people will use indian pipe when having a bad trip, to bring them back down. Also it’s said indian pipe can help with emotional pain, ptsd and mental health issues.
With pickins pretty slim this time a year, it’s hard to go find a bounty out in the woods. However there are some things to keep an eye out for on the trail. (pictures in order as descriptions following) The jelly mushrooms seem to pop up all around the year wood ear and amber jelly roll are two of the best, both edible and look very similar. Black cup fungus and witches butter are two more edible jelly mushrooms, both are distinct in look and color. The witches butter is a bright yellow, can be eaten raw but is rather tasteless. Wild enoki or velvet foot mushrooms are winter lovers and grow in clusters, usually on elm trees, which is a great way to find possible morel spots in spring. These are tricky as the deadly galerina looks very similar. They do have a velvety base to the stem which is a big difference, hence the name. Chaga of coarse grows all year and is one of the best all around medicinals. I found a late lions mane in our region about a week ago and with temps being slightly warmer it’s not rare to see them this time of year. There’s many kinds of conk mushrooms out there all year around, the artist conk is a medicinal one that can take on different looks. Birch polypore is pretty distinct in look, starting white and taking on a goldish, tan color with age, they have an almost toothed look on the bottom as they grow. Turkey tail grows well in winter and shows up in a range of colors. Be sure they have a white bottom and are paper thin. These are little medicinal powerhouses and can be found anywhere on downed wood, branches, trunks or logs. Lastly winter oysters are a real delight to come across, they can get quite big and have more of a goldish white color. They are some of my favorite tasting of the oysters. Until next month, happy winter hunting y’all.
It’s 2023!! Wow typing that year feels futuristic. Fun fact about me, I love to draw, the drawing above is one of mine. Winter leaves more space for me to get more creative indoors and one of my favorite forms of mediation is to sit and create art. Most every drawing contains a mushroom or ten. Over the years I have attempted and grown lions mane, oysters, shiitake and chestnut mushrooms, though I wild forage all the mushrooms I use in my products, growing can be a lot of fun and a rewarding process. Sometime in the near future I would love to have the space to grow on a larger scale, focusing on culinary mushrooms. Here’s some of my past successful grows:
Markets: For the next few months I only have one market on my schedule.
Weaverville winter market: Wednesdays 3-6 @ weaverville community center 60 Lakeshore drive. I’ll be there 1/4 and 1/18.
New product: If you came to the tailgate markets this past year, you may have bought some of my wild mushroom salt. I usually always have an excess of foraged mushrooms throughout the year, which I dehydrate and grind and mix with celtic sea salt. I use this seasoning with all my cooking. This batch I have ready to go has chanterelles, black trumpets, maitake and chicken of the wood. Available now in my shop!
Monthly Special: Ringing in the new year, 2023, with 10% off the entire store!! All tinctures, teabags and dried mushrooms will be ten percent off all month long.
So what to look for in January? Well Chaga tops the list, getting into the high elevations is a must to find my favorite mushroom. Only medicinal on the birch trees, Chaga can be found anywhere on the tree, however typically it grows higher up. Chaga is the king of medicinal mushrooms, with it’s range of amazing benefits. It’s more than important to not harvest small pieces that haven’t matured and also when you do harvest some, leaving a good percentage to regrow is also important. Also keep an eye out for Birch Polypore, another birch dwelling mushroom. Birch Polypore is an often overlooked medicinal powerhouse, great for gut health, immune system and can also make a great addition to a fire! Turkey Tails will continue into the winter months, often frozen which makes harvesting a bit tougher. Winter oysters and velvet foot/Enoki are a few edibles to look out for during winter. The velvet foot typically grows on elm trees and can be a good indicator of where you may want to look for Morels come spring!
Although winter can be cold and seem barren in the forest, it is a wonderful time to simply enjoy time in nature. I’m a man of all seasons and really enjoy being immersed in the forest no matter what time of year it is. I want to wish you all a very merry new year, I hope this year will bring whatever you strive for as well as health and happiness! I’m grateful to you all that support my small business and continue to spread the mycelium network out a little further! Mushlove in 2023…..
Oh what a year it’s been in the mushroom foraging world for me this year! From the start to the finish, it was an excellent year for sure. Most years are pretty consistent, however every year shows different patterns. This past years the morels were great but the reishi was not as much. This year saw some great flushes of chanterelles, chickens, honeys, milkies, turkey tail and so many more, the maitake and lions mane were not as abundant as past years. All in all it was a busy time foraging mushrooms throughout the whole year. I attended my first mushroom festival and for the third year in a row I taught many groups and visited a few private homes to teach. Since all my products are made with wild foraged mushrooms, I spend the majority of my time in the forest. Each season brings a new experience and a new set of mushrooms with it. I love to watch the changes and the consistency from year to year. I’m truly blessed to spend my time among the trees, picking mushrooms, experiencing the serenity of nature and doing what I love the most! Here’s a look at the year passing by through the eyes of a wild crafter.
My first good hunts began in February, being my birthday month, I always like to do a good chaga hunt. The first couple of months of the year are slim pickins, mostly chaga, turkey tail, usnea, some jelly mushrooms and birch polypore, almost all of which grow in high elevations. For me that’s the way I like it, the high elevations have a different feel, the forest seems denser, the landscape more rocky, and of coarse the views are a bit more stunning. Winter mushroom hunting is also a solitary time, it’s quite rare that I see anyone on the trail during the winter months, at least in places further away from the city. I love the quiet, with occasional sounds of creaking trees or breaking icicles, the brisk, cold air with deep breathes and how crisp everything looks. The advantage to winter foraging is the bare trees and lack of plant coverage, the ability to see through the forest is nice, especially with chaga, which can really stand out from a distance, however sometimes, burls, broken branches, holes in the tree or dark moss can easily fool you.
Then came March and April and the season many mushroom lovers look forward to more than any other hunt, morel season! For much of my first years mushroom hunting, the morel was the ghost, I spent a lot of time searching but always coming up empty. Over the next few years I’d find a handful until I finally found a few patches I could count on every year. This year was my first real banner year finding them, but not just on my own accord, a good friend of mine, that’s been hunting morels for many years around here, invited me along for the season. My friend taught me about patterns, environments, using mapping and some strong instincts to really dial in where the elusive morels hide out. We set out early in the mornings and would spend the whole day, light to dark, searching, picking and having a blast in several different forests on the hunt. The four types of morels in our region are black, gray, blonde and half free morels. Trees are always a factor in finding morels, poplar, elm and apple trees are the top producers in the blue ridge mountains. Many mushrooms are associated with and have a relationship with different trees, this is one of the best tips I can give people. Morels take patience, lots of slow, observant steps, and although it happens, finding just one is rare, morels grow in patches, much like chanterelles, so were there is one, there’s more! It’s truly an exciting hunt and fun to see others finds in posts from around the country and locally. Out of all the mushrooms I forage, morel and chaga spots are not ones I share too much. This year I dehydrated a fair amount of morels to eat through out the year and I still have some left for christmas dinner.
May and June bring about an exciting time that moves in slowly. There’s always seems a space of time between when the morels end and the new crop of mushrooms move in. Pheasant backs are some of the first to show up, they have a strong cucumber smell and taste good when they are small, growing bitter with age and size. Corals of all kinds also begin, the crown tipped corals are the only ones I eat, many corals are tough on the digestive system and some are toxic. You may see different jelly mushrooms or cup fungus, also the very popular chicken of the woods begins it’s season, that lasts through late fall. The berkleys polypore is one that can be too tough to eat and can often fool you into thinking it’s a big chicken of the wood. Indian pipe/ghost pipe is not a mushroom but a wild flower that feeds off mushrooms, and is powerful medicine, these beauties grow in large clusters during these months. The big prize of the spring is the reishi however. Reishi is one of the most beautiful mushrooms to find, with it’s shiny, lacquered appearance, reishi is amazing medicine used and revered for much of history. Here in this region they prefer hemlock trees and grow in groups, they can grow quite large as well. This past year the reishi was not nearly as abundant as past years.
July and August are when things really get popping. This is prime time to see lots of the diversity these mountains have to offer. It’s my favorite time to take groups out. The chanterelles are a delightful mushroom to forage, with a wide range of variety, there are golden, smooth, fragrant, flame colored, peach, cinnabar and the black trumpets. They are found in big patches and the smell, color and taste are all wonderful. The milky or lactarious family can be quite prolific. Blue indigos and leatherbacks are two of the most popular and both tasty. The boletes also dominate the forest floor, with over 200 different varieties in our region, I focus on about 5-10. The old man of the wood, the shaggy stalk, the painted, the slippery Jack, many boletes are mushy and an acquired taste but fun to see, especially the ones that turn colors. The beefsteak is a unique one as you can eat it raw. Cauliflower mushroom is a delicious mushroom and hard to mistake for anything else. The russula family is a colorful one, they can be green, red, purple, yellow or brown, not the best edibles however. Lobster mushrooms are a parasitic fungi that takes over other mushrooms and become the bright orange lobster claws that hide in the pine needles. The bleeding tooth is an interesting fungi and so is cordyceps. Cordyceps, aka the zombie mushroom, infects an insects body and grows out of its brain! These little wonders are medicinal and are tricky to find, this year I found a few and couldn’t be happier about that. It takes really slowing down and observing closely. During this time it’s important to be aware of the deadly mushrooms too! The amanita family rules this realm, showing up in lots of different colors and looks. Once you become familiar with some distinctive features, it’s easy to pick them out in the wild.
September and October usher in the fall mushrooms. Hiding in colorful and fallen leaves, Maitake or hen of the wood and lions mane stand out during this time of year. Both for their medicinal benefits and for their taste. Lions mane is great for brain health and taste like seafood. Bears head tooth/comb tooth look very much like lions mane and are similar in taste and benefit. Maitake has a nutty flavor and it fights high cholesterol among other benefits. Lions mane loves beech and oak trees, Maitake is drawn to oaks. Hens are masters of disguise, blending perfectly with the foliage and surroundings. Also growing at the base of oaks are honey mushrooms, which grow in large clusters but to be eaten in small doses. Puffballs are cute little edibles. Earth stars, stalked puffballs and stink horns look like they came from outer space. Blewits are a beautiful purple color, to be foraged with caution as there are toxic purple corts. Shrimp of the woods is a parasitic mushroom that takes over honey mushrooms, they are a really good edible. The resinous polypore or steak of the woods is another good edible mushroom, typically trimming off the outer edges to sauté. Chicken of the woods is still abundant in fall, as well as other summer mushrooms hanging around. Over all fall is a great time to forage!
November and December end the year just as it began, mushroom wise that is. It’s a time revisit the high elevations or go south to find the last of lions mane. As my radar would have it, I finished the year with a foraging trip to South Carolina and found some beautiful lions mane, 5 to be exact and finding three more I couldn’t get to! Foraging chaga, turkey tail, and birch polypore here for the remainder of the year. You may find edible winter oysters or brick tops out during this time as well.
This year I also attended my first mushroom festival in Pennsylvania, I started several new collaborations that brought about chaga soap, chaga lager beer and a cbd/mushroom tincture. I attended a mushroom growing blitz, vended new markets, made some great foraging trips and made lots of new connections! It’s been a fantastic fungi year!! Can’t wait to see what 2023 has in store….
December has ascended on us here in the Blue Ridge mountains, and with the last weeks of the year go the last of the years mushrooms. It’s always a little bitter sweet but also a time to reflect, to travel and the hunts not over yet, winter is a great time to go looking for Chaga! Besides mushroom hunting, the cold winter months provide a chance to embrace the season by just being immersed within it. It’s a time of rest, sometimes solitude, reflection, planning forward and a time to enjoy the moment, enjoy the connection of friends or family or people your just meeting, and of coarse the connection to nature!
Markets: My regular markets have ended for the year but here’s some upcoming events I’ll be vending at.
Holiday Gift Market: December 9th-11th, 12-6 each day @ Ella 81 broadway st downtown.
Monthly Special: This months special is on Birch Polypore and Usnea tinctures. 1oz will be $15 and 2oz will be $25. One a mushroom and the other a lichen, these two are growing in the cold months. I carry them individually and also do a blend of them together. Usnea, aka old mans beard, benefits include: fights colds and flu, anti-viral, anti-bacterial, breaks up phlegm and congestion. Birch Polypore benefits include: immune system boost, soothing the gut, provides a healthy micro-biome and deterring harmful organisms.
Not everything has gone into hiding. Turkey Tail in all it’s many colors will continue to grow, Birch Polypore and Chaga can be found in high elevations on birch trees, and Usnea drips off the trees almost anywhere, however collecting it also in high elevations is better as it collects heavy metals in more polluted areas. You may also come across winter Oysters, which have a goldish tint and can get pretty big. Lastly is the brick top mushroom, which is edible but needs caution as the sulphur tuft and other members of that family, are toxic. There’s always other interesting fungi out, polypores, slime molds, and such and sometimes just seeing those and admiring the whole mycelium network can a joyful experience. In that spirit I’d like to wish everyone a very happy holidays and a merry new year! I wish everyone to be in great health, to be happy and feel light in your steps and can’t wait to see what 2023 shale bring us in the mushroom kingdom and beyond.
November is here and it may be safe to say it is the gate way to winter. The beginning of this month may be the last chance to gather what’s left in the forest for the fall mushrooms. Some Maitake, Chickens, puffballs, and Lions Mane should be hanging around for a few more weeks. Many people ask me what I do during the winter months, and the answer is that I still forage a good bit, I forage some Chaga, Turkey Tail and Birch Polypore during this time, winter hiking is essential for me as staying in the house is not something I do a lot! It’s also a time for tincture and product making and simply stocking up with inventory. There will some holiday markets happening this month and next which will be listed in this newsletter. It’s been an amazing year for just about every mushroom I encountered with big, abundant flushes, I also got to teach many classes and I foraged enough to keep stocked until the season begins again. I do not teach any classes in the winter months, with the exception of a rare Chaga walk here and there. One good tip for any foragers out there is that through out the year it’s a good idea to dehydrate some of your findings to use later, making wild mushroom soups, chilis or simply adding some sautéed mushrooms to your winter meals is wonderful. I dehydrate all through out the year and look forward to adding morels, chanterelles, hens, milkies, trumpets and others I’ve collected into my winter dishes.
Markets:
Ferment Festival— Sunday November 6th from 11-5 @ Madison county fairgrounds
Enka/Candler Holiday Market—November 12th and 13th 11-6 on Saturday and 11-4 on Sunday @ ABTech 1465 Sandhill rd, Candler, NC
East Asheville Tailgate— 11/4, 11/11 and 11/18, Fridays from 3-6 @ 954 tunnel rd Asheville
Yancey County Tailgate—11/5 from 9-12:30 downtown Burnsville.
Mars Hill Tailgate— 11/19 from 10-1 @college st Mars Hill
Weaverville winter market— All month on Wednesdays from 3-6 at Weaverville community center. 60 Lakeshore drive
Monthly Special:
The monthly special for November is $10 off Lions Mane tinctures. 1oz will be $20 and 2oz $30. Wild foraged from the Blue Ridge Mountains, Lions Mane offers a range of great benefits including: Cognitive health/boost, improving memory and focus, helps fight depression/anxiety, cancer fighting properties, anti-inflammatory, speeding up nerve damage recovery, reduces heart disease risk, improves stomach health, and immune system boost.
Chicken of the woodwood blewitHoneyShrimp of the woodHensPuffballsTurkey TailLions Mane
Time is running out on the mushroom hunting for the year for many of us. I will continue to forage through out the winter, mostly hunting Chaga and Turkey Tail. Here in our region there’s still time to go find Honey, Hen, Chicken of the wood, Shrimp of the woods, Puffball, Blewit, Lions Mane and Turkey Tail mushrooms. With the leaves changing colors and falling off the trees, the hunting becomes more challenging, as the mushrooms blend in and hide.
Be on the look out for the Resinous Polypore also! It’s a tasty one…
Fall has always been one of my favorite times of the year, ever since I was little I can remember loving going out in a world splashed with vivid colors. Fall makes for some great, yet challenging mushroom hunting. Summer spoils us with a wonderful abundance of many different kinds of mushrooms, fall on the other hand gives us a few great ones but they are harder to find. I’ll give out some helpful tips on how to find what’s out there now later in the newsletter.
Oct 7th from 6-9
Markets:
East Asheville Tailgate– Fridays 3-6 @ 954 tunnel rd I’ll be there 10/14 and 10/21
Yancey County Farmers Market– Saturdays 8:30-12:30 Downtown Burnsville I’ll be there 10/8 and 10/15
Axe and Awl-Art after dark– Friday 10/7 from 6-9 @ 41 depot st, Waynesville
Monthly Special: In honor of the appearance of the Hens, this month both 1 oz and 2 oz Maitake tinctures will be $10 off. Maitake-Hen of the woods-dancing mushroom is not only a super delightful edible wild mushroom, it’s also very medicinal! Maitake has been in studies and showed promise against and recovering from covid. It boosts immune support, lowers risk of heart disease and lowers cholesterol, attacks cancerous tumors, helps manage diabetes, and is high in vitamin D, which can help increase energy.
Shrimp of the woodGem studded puffballTurkey TailBeefsteakChicken of the woodBlewitHoney MushroomsHen of the woodReishiLions Mane
This month will see some amazing mushrooms popping out. Honey mushrooms are some you can find in force. There are ringed and ringless Honey mushrooms, the veil is the distinguishing factor between them. They grow in large clusters, usually at the base of dying trees. Honey stems strip apart like string cheese and are white inside. Maitake, aka hen of the wood, aka, the dancing mushroom, is truly one of the best culinary mushrooms in taste and also holds much medicinal benefit. Hens are usually always found at the base of large oak trees and are masters at blending in. Lions Mane and Bears Head Tooth/Comb Tooth can be found growing on dying beech or oak trees, sometimes birch. This family of mushrooms has shown great benefits for the brain, as well as numerous other benefits. Also are really good tasting, comparable to seafood. Chicken of the wood will last into this month, as well as beefsteak, puffballs, blewits and shrimp of the wood. Shrimps have a special relationship with Honey mushrooms, very similar to Lobster mushrooms where they take over the honeys and evolve into the puffy shrimps, edible and delicious! The variety of Reishi, Ganoderma Curtisii, which are known for their long stems and purplish blue color, can also be found this month and are equally medicinal to other Reishi species. Here’s some links for cooking these varieties:
Lastly I wanna give a spotlight to one of my students, her name is Lindsey Spratt and she is a top notch photographer! Lindsey has joined several of my mushroom tours and specializes in mushroom and nature photography. Her work can found on her facebook page: Breathing Gaia Photography.
Hope you get out on the parkway or other mountain roads and enjoy the fall foliage which should be popping in the higher elevations now and soon taking over everywhere!
Here we go into fall. Things are cooling down in the Blue Ridge Mountains as we move into September, but the mushrooms will go on! Many summer mushrooms will continue into the month such as Chanterelles, Boletes, Milkies, Chickens and others. There will also be a new set coming up, Honey mushrooms, Maitake (hen of the wood), Blewits, shrimp of the wood and Lions Mane to name a few. Fall can be a truly refreshing time to be in the forest, with cooler temps in the air and bright colors on the trees. Lots to look forward still. I’ll be continuing mushroom tours and home visits into this month, typically is the last month I do them for the year.
***I will be traveling in the middle of the month for a week and a half and some orders may be delayed. ***
Exciting new product collaboration! I teamed up with Midge from Mudhouse Farm Soaps to offer a Chaga infused soap! She has made a master blend of organic ingredients such as Coconut, olive, sweet almond oil, avocado oil, rosemary and melissa essential oils. These are now for sale at the markets when I vend, also in my shop page here on the website. I’ve been using them and love it, no more regular soap for me! Bars are $7.
Monthly Special: This months special is $10 off all Cordyceps tinctures. I have double extracted and vegetable glycerin Cordyceps tinctures in 1oz or 2oz. The variety is Cordyceps Militaris. Cordyceps has a long history in medicinal use around the globe, especially in Asia. Here’s a clip of Paul Staments talking Corcyceps: https://youtu.be/wRwtxGoL_-A
A recent find
Benefits include: Brain function and health, Anti-Cancer and Anti-Aging properties, help fight diabetes, immune system boost, helps endurance athletes, improves sexual function, improves liver and kidney function.
Earth StarsStink HornCrown Tipped CoralShaggy Stalked BoleteChicken of the WoodGem studded Puffball
