Mushroom huntin, berry pickin & flower garden lovin

Today, I wondered into the garden. The tomatoes are my height, the cushaw and cucumber plants will be growing passed my head as they continue to climb the fencing. The corn is not as tall as most corn this time of the year, but for as late as I planted the corn, it's impressively tall.

I stood here proudly by rows of tomatoes in the garden.

Here are some snapshots of the garden progress. I picked my first cucumber today. Those should be coming on more prolific as the tomaotes will soon.

Cucumbers with tobacco sticks tied

Patches of different corn, tomatoes and corn growing

Ash exploring the garden for fruits, and giving us a wave.

Cushaw and cucumber growing on fence

Rows of corn growing alongside cushaw, cucumbers, and tomatoes 

More rows of corn 

My grandpa said that he has some cushaw fruits that are growing so it should be time for the rest of the rows of cushaw plants to start producing.

worms eye view of cushaw and cucumbers

Sunday was my only free day, so I hoed in rows of seed to replace the bean seeds I had planted. There were some bean plants that had come up, but not enough to make a big mess for canning. The seeds I planted in their place was 7 top Turnip, Purple top white globe turnip, early Jersey wakefield cabbage, bloomsdale spinach, black seeded Simpson lettuce, and buttercrunch lettuce.

Sowed seeds of turnip, lettuce, cabbage, etc

Here is another patch of tomatoes, growing alongside some beautiful begonias and coleus flowers that are hogging all of the attention.

Another patch of tomatoes with flowers

Below are the flowers working the runway this fashion week. Some flowers are my grandma's garden that I planted, like the gladiolus, and the whimsical little wildflower garden is my own that I planted.

Last week when I had a day off, I went mushroom hunting for chanterelles. I went to a spot where I hadn't been in almost a decade. But lo and behold, there they are, still growing in the same spots! I fried them up and ate them over rice. 

Here are other pickins from the garden, potatoes, berries, and jalapenos.

I have directly composted with fresh food scraps around the figs trees and grape plants. I have two Chicago hardy fig trees full of fruits and I hope the compost will make the get big fast, as well as the grape vines producing their fruits. But, we desperately need rain for them to produce juicy goodness, as well!

Already pickung chanterelle mushrooms in the woods

We foraged these today from the woods

Chanterelle mushrooms are found in july, but this rain and abnormal heat has brought them on a couple weeks ahead of usual picking times. I always found these on the edge of woods and property lines behind people's houses. Here is a reference if you want to mushroom hunt for these delicacies.

For more reference photos to find your own, use the search tool on this blog by typing in chanterelle mushrooms, or use the tags "wild edibles", "foraging", "chanterelles" and "mushroom identification" where I've shown these in video too.

I fried them with a little oil, salt and pepper over rice 

Old chicken of the woods mushrooms + paw paw grove + tomato harvest

Much of the chicken of the woods mushrooms I see are always growing at the bottom of an oak tree, usually at the base or around the roots among the leaves.

These mushrooms were growing all over the woods after the heavy rainfall

paw paw grove behind my house

pasta dinner with dehydrated & fresh garden tomatoes 

The snail is so cute...

tomato harvest 

How To Identify Chanterelle & Chicken of the Woods Mushrooms video

Found chanterelle & chicken of the woods mushrooms but didn't pick them

I found many chanterelle mushrooms and Chicken of the woods mushrooms in the woods today. Judging by the state of the mushrooms, they may have been worth picking yesterday but considering it rained hard yesterday, the mushrooms were water logged.

I didn't take photos of the chanterelles--I have taken plenty photos of them for anyone that wants to identify them. I took pictures of the chicken of the woods mushroom, though, for anyone that wants to know what they look like and how to identify them even if they're water logged mushrooms.

Notice the way the Chicken of the woods grow in a large cluster around the base of an oak tree. That's how you will find other mushrooms of this variety. I always find them growing on this specific tree around this time of the year in late July. The Chicken of the woods mushrooms and Chanterelles grow at this time of year on the south facing side of the hill, not far into the woods.

Chicken of the woods mushroom have a distinct look as you can see in the photo here. The mushrooms look like a fan. Because I took a picture of the mushrooms after they were water-logged, the color is different. Chicken of the woods are usually colored orange and pink with white on the underside and along the edge.

As mentioned, the chicken of the woods mushrooms are white on the underside. The underside is  sponge-like, but don't let that weird you out because they are delicious. Similar to how I cook chanterelle mushrooms, with chicken of the woods I use my fingers to pull "strips" of the mushroom apart and then fry them with a little oil on low heat. Before cooking, I clean the mushrooms thoroughly and cook them thoroughly.

Caged garden to keep out rabbits & cats + PHALLIC MUSHROOM in the yard

mesclun spicy mix

arugula

Radish

Swiss chard

lettuce

Broccoli

Beets

Cabbage

Peas on trellis

Stink horn mushroom