Ed. — From the Sunday, Feb. 5, print edition.
VIRGINIA BEACH — I grew up hunting morel mushrooms in the woods of Indiana with my father. He made sure I picked the right ones because you do have to be careful when hunting for mushrooms. Not every mushroom is safe. But mushrooms, and fungi in general, are fascinating.
Morels fried in butter? There was no better treat during the mushroom hunting season in springtime. They are still my favorite, and hunting morels in Indiana is still an annual tradition back home.
Virginia Beach is not a great climate for morels, but they are hunted in other parts of Virginia. There are three species in Virginia, the black, tiny tulip and yellow morel, according to an article by Bruce Ingram at the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources website.
I tend to do more growing than gathering.
My second favorite mushroom is the shiitake, partly because they taste good – and because they are reasonably easy to produce yourself. You can harvest after the initial groundwork of obtaining and then inoculating oak logs. You can pick from the same logs for several years. I used to grow for sale at my farm. Now it’s just for fun.
Elizabeth Cramer, writing for Epic Gardening, notes that as much as a quarter of mushroom production around the world consists of growing the mighty shiitake. You can grow them at home in a greenhouse or garden using either a log or logs or even a starter kit that can easily be ordered.
Getting oak logs that are a few feet long and six to eight inches in diameter may be a challenge. But you can call a tree service and ask them to save you some in early spring when the sap is rising. Ideally, you cover it with pine boughs, which attract a different set of microorganisms. These allows the shiitake mushrooms to colonize the log.
Mushrooms are wonderful fungi that are the stuff that starts and sustains life on the planet. “And,” Garen Cook wrote in a 2020 Scientific American article, “they serve as a platform for, and partner in, almost every aspect of life.” The first known fungi may date back a billion years, according to a report in Nature.
Fungi and their vast networks carry nutrients to plants, and it is a symbiotic relationship. Plants also feed microbes, and it’s important to keep your microbes alive because, as I’ve written here many times before, you feed your soil because your soil feeds your plants. To feed your soil is to feed microorganisms. Keep your microbes alive using compost, and other natural fertilizers help, too.
Fungi have a variety of properties and uses. Psilocybin is a drug that may have applications helping PTSD patients under care of a medical professional. There are mushrooms that can be made into durable building materials. Penicillin is also made from fungi, as are other drugs. Fungi helps make beer and wine, and they are involved in bread making.
These life forms are incredibly important, and some happen to taste really good. So the next time you sit down to a plate of mushrooms, remember the many other life-giving uses of this life form – and that there usually is a vast underground network to support the mushrooms we see and eat.
The author, a farmer and consultant, writes about sustainable farming and gardening for The Independent News. Reach him via farmerjohnnewearth@yahoo.com.
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