I took the dogs up to a favourite forest this morning. I was looking (unsuccessfully) for oyster mushrooms, Pleurotus populinus – the so-called aspen oyster. Normally they fruit around the beginning of June in my local forests. Last weekend I was away at banjo camp… Read More
I went for a hike today, scouting around to see if any yellow morels may have started fruiting. I didn’t see any morels, and judging from what I saw today, I’d say we’re still a week early. (all of this is entirely in my imagination… Read More
This has been such a bizarre early spring, with many things in the garden greening up way early, it’s difficult to judge when the morels will show up. I see on Twitter that it is turning into a great season for morels in many places… Read More
In the spring, the first tasty edible mushrooms to appear in Southern Ontario are morels in May. Those are followed at roughly the beginning of June with oyster mushrooms, and then we don’t see anything much happening on the edible mushroom front for some time.… Read More
I took the dogs out for an early morning walk in a forest not far from the city. I was hoping to see the first chanterelles of the season or possibly even some early summer boletes, but I didn’t come across any interesting fungi. We… Read More
Both our dogs caught kennel cough at the local dog park. They’ve been on anti-biotics and we haven’t been letting them run around much. Today, they were both obviously feeling better. I didn’t know if they were still contagious or not so instead of taking… Read More
This shot was taken on a hike on the Limberlost Reserve. Ellie had been in for a swim. Ellie isn’t fast but she has quite a bit of stamina and handled the 5 mile hike no problem.
Last week I observed many different varieties of boletes – mushrooms with pores instead of gills or teeth. Here are some examples.
This is a so-called experimental forest in the Bracebridge area of Ontario. As you can see in the photo, it consists of an extensive network of trails near the Muskoka River through a variety of forest mixes. I observed a lot of mushrooms as the… Read More
I observed many puffballs on my trip. There are several varieties of small puffballs in our area, and I’m not an expert on telling them apart but my best assessment is that I saw Lycoperdon pyriforme – the Pear-shaped Puffball; and Lycoperdon perlatum – the… Read More
27th Street 