Mushroom Madness: What Lurks Below?

One of the byproducts of all the rain we’ve had this year—more than 13 inches above average to date in this area—is that mushrooms are popping up here, there, and just about everywhere in our gardens and lawns.  The photos with this posting are some of the mushrooms growing here at Meadow Glenn.

So if I have mushrooms growing in our own yard, why did I stop by the Giant Food store to buy two handfuls of two kinds of mushrooms?  You know the answer: mushrooms are notoriously difficult to identify.  An edible variety may look nearly identical to its poisonous relative. A deer or squirrel may eat one, but it might kill you.

In his “Gardening” column in Thursday’s Post, Adrian Higgins took a look at some common wild mushrooms and explained why wise gardeners leave picking them to the experts. 

Higgins also taught me something about the “leviathan” that lurks below the mushroom that pops up in our garden:  “Here’s the thing about the mushroom.  It is merely the fruiting body of a much larger and permanent organism that lives beneath the soil.  It is akin to the flower of a plant, dispersing its seed.  I like to think of a mushroom as the dorsal fin of some great whale that lives in the depths.  It flashes, it is gone, the leviathan passes from our consciousness, but it is still there.”

If you’re curious about the mushrooms growing in your garden or lawn, take a few minutes to read Higgins’ article, “Beneath the planet of the mushrooms,” and look at the photo illustrations.  CLICK HERE.

And remember to leave wild mushroom harvesting to the experts.

Tomato Patch: Last Pickings & Pulling Up the Plants

Plants tell me the end is near

The diseased leaves and vines of Tomato Patch 2011 told me it was time to pick the last of this year’s tomatoes and tear out the nearly dead plants—three or four weeks before I usually do this sad job.

I describe the job as a sad one because I just plain hate to see the tomato season end.  When we cut the last red fruit that we’ve harvested from the Tomato Patch, we get that nearly hopeless feeling that we’re left with those red “things” we will not be even tempted to buy at the super market until our memories of our mouth-watering home-grown tomatoes fades with our memories of this year’s autumn leaves.

I tore out the dying vines over three days, a couple of hours here, a couple of hours there.  The first day I picked about 20 big-reds, mostly at breaker stage or beyond, that I thought had a reasonable chance to ripen in our garage, and I took down the cages that had supported the vines.  The second day I picked a half colander of little-reds and then removed their cages too.

Big reds: Last picking

On the third day I pulled out all the plants and wheel-barrowed them to a “compost” pile near the edge of our woods.  Since the vines were diseased, I had no thought other than to remove them completely from our vegetable garden.  Next year I will plant tomatoes in a totally different area of our garden in order to minimize disease carry-over from this year.

My experience with ripening end-of-season tomatoes is that those with cracks around the stem are much more likely to spoil before fully ripening, so most of the fruit I moved into the garage were small Brandywines and the other varieties with few cracks—Celebrities and Juliets.

A week after moving the last tomatoes into the garage, I can report that the extra-warm temperatures of the second week of October 2011 are causing them to ripen rapidly, and I have to check them every day to make sure we eat them before they spoil.  

Little reds: Last picking

Even though I picked the last of this year’s tomatoes and pulled up the vines, I’m not ready to write “The End” to Tomato Patch 2011.  I have a few chores yet to do, and in future postings I’ll show you what I do.