fungi, Fungus Fair- Santa Cruz, mushrooms

Fungi- The Good, the Bad & the Beautiful

A recent article in The Press Banner warned of the severe consequences of mistakenly eating poisonous mushrooms found in our area. With our early rainfall this season fungi are emerging at a record pace and if you are not an expert at identifying a particular variety of edible mushroom better leave them off the dining table. While there are many wild mushrooms growing in this area that are edible there are just as many that are poisonous. Mistakenly ingesting one can cause death or liver damage so severe that a transplant would be needed for you to survive.

Amanita muscaria

There are over a thousand beautiful fungi to discover in our area. They live in such lovely places. Each year I volunteer as a basketeer for the Fungus Fair that is organized by the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz. It?s held at the Louden Nelson Community Center in Santa Cruz on Friday afternoon, January 13th and continues on Saturday and Sunday, January 14th and 15th from 10:00am – 5:00pm.

Mushroom experts will be available throughout the fair to identify mushrooms you?ve found. Bring yours in a paper bag which keeps them fresher than plastic. You?ve got a week to collect remembering that those in our State Parks are off limits.

Honey mushrooms

The habitat display is what I help put together by creating baskets of some of the hundreds of mushroom species commonly found in the Santa Cruz and neighboring counties. It is one of the main attractions of the Fungus Fair. Volunteers collect different types of tree, leaf and duff material for the tables and main centerpiece that will display fungi by order and family. It?s an easy way to get started learning which ones are poisonous, good eating and just plain beautiful or unusual.

During the fair renowned speakers will talk about mushroom toxicity, identification, myth busting and even mushroom medicine along with cooking demonstrations and tastings of exceptionally good fungal fare. The Kid?s Room which is open on Saturday and Sunday has mushroom arts and crafts, face painting and making dyed fabrics. You can even look at fungi spores through a microscope.

Most foragers enjoy the hunt for fungi as well as eating them in a good meal. Me, I seem to take more photographs than specimens. Getting down at their level as they emerge from the earth, looking to see if their undersides have gills or pores or other identifying features, makes one appreciate our entire ecosystem and how we fit in. In most any meadow or mixed forest you are sure to discover varieties you?ve never seen before.

Coral fungi found in Fall Creek St Park

I recently came across an impressive coral fungi emerging from the forest duff. They are quite distinctive looking and many are edible. My Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms by David Aurora, however, states that even this unique looking family of fungi can be hard to identify. Some are edible while many are mildly poisonous.

Don?t miss the opportunity to see hundreds of fungi up close and personal as well as take in all the talks, displays, food and marketplace next weekend at the Fungus Fair.

New Year resolutions

Happy New Year 2017

Mother Nature made her presence known this past month. She has a way of doing that. Between the 25 inches of rain that fell in December alone up here in Bonny Doon and the short but impressive cold snap that descended upon us before Christmas I?m humbled. As the calendar turns to a New Year these are some of my thoughts for 2017.

Happy New Year 2017

Dreaming is more than an idle pursuit. It’s good for you and improves the quality of your life over the long haul. We gardeners are eternal optimists. Why else would we plant a tree, a seed or a garden?

Enjoy your garden. Set realistic goals. After all, who cares if there are a few weeds here and there when you’re sitting under a shade tree next July. Enjoy a beverage of some kind often in your garden. That clean up or transplanting will still be there tomorrow.

New Years resolutions for gardeners should be mere suggestions. Don’t worry if you don’t get to everything you hoped to accomplish. It’s all in the baby steps. Your wish list will serve you well during the cold, wet days of winter even if you don’t get them implemented. Sure planning a landscape that conserves water will benefit the environment and your budget. And ordering seeds for the spring garden is great therapy for winter blues. But there’s always next year or next month or the summer after next.

I did fulfill some goals I had for this year, adding more pollen-producing flowering plants to attract beneficial insects. They?ll keep the good guys around longer to eat the bad bugs. And I learned what quite a few of the good guys look like. I?m going to count this as two resolutions.

I sat in my garden and enjoyed it- not jumping up to rearrange containers or deadhead. This one was easy.

I accepted a few holes in my plants and walked around the garden regularly to identify if a problem was getting out of control and I needed to break out an organic pesticide.

I tried to plant more edibles but my growing conditions thwarted me. The Farmer?s Market and generous friends helped fill the gap. Edibles in the garden feed both the body and the soul. More than just vegetables and fruit trees growing food connects us to the earth and to each other.

When you grow something you are being a good steward of the land as you enrich the topsoil using sustainable organic techniques. You connect with neighbors by trading your extra pumpkins for their persimmons. Knowledge of how and what to grow can be exchanged, seeds swapped. Do your best even if you only have a few containers to grow an Early Girl tomato or some Rainbow chard.

Enjoy the simple things. Laugh often. Life is not measured by the breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away. Everyday is a gift, that’s why we call it the present.

Happy New Year to all of you fellow gardeners from The Mountain Gardener. May your tomatoes be sweet and your roses as fragrant as a summer’s eve.

Christmas poem

A Christmas Poem by The Mountain Gardener

Hydrangea Christmas tree

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the garden,
The creatures were stirring, the deer got a pardon.
The hummingbird feeders were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that the Anna’s soon would be there.

The flowering cherries were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of spring glory danced in their heads.
The summer vegetables were harvested and beds put to nap,
The compost’s a brewing so next year’s a snap.

When out on the lawn there rose such a clatter,
I ran into the garden to see what was the matter.
And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a big flock of chickadees and eight black-tailed deer.

They spoke not a word, but went straight to their work,
The chickadees devouring aphids with amazing teamwork.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the deck,
Prancing and pawing, the deer making a wreck.

A hydrangea here, an abutilon there, this garden’s a feast,
With edibles and perennials at the very least.
We love this garden, they whispered to themselves,
With any luck, they’ll think we’re the elves !

Beautiful flowers and nectar and fragrance abounds,
We’ll include this forever on one of our rounds.
The birds can sing and fly in the skies
But we have the charm with huge brown doe-eyes.

We get a bad rap, it’s not all our fault,
Most of our feeding grounds are covered with asphalt.
Just give us a sleigh and we’ll make you proud,
We’re good for more than just eating roses, they vowed.

Call us Dasher and Dancer and Comet and Vixen,
Or Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen,
Then maybe you’ll forgive us for our past mistakes,
We can’t help that we eat plants, we don’t eat steaks.

Now if you’ve been good this year, go ahead make a wish,
And each time you see us, think welcome, not banish.
And all of us creatures will give it our best shot,
To feed and nourish your garden with nary a thought.

So everybody listen carefully on Christmas Eve,
And maybe you’ll hear us and then you’ll believe.
You may even hear us exclaim as we prance out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

My thanks to Clement Clark Moore who wrote the original poem in 1822 in New York. I’d like to believe that he would enjoy my version for gardeners everywhere.

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