As you are passionate and knowledgeable of green growing plants I love and have studied mushrooms. I can tell you that many if not most of all mushrooms known as parasitic are now known to be symbiotic with nature. Learn live grow ❤
I actually put Red Wine Cap mushroom spawn in my Squash bed in the straw mulch. The fungi break down the straw and feed the squash, then when they fruit I get to eat the mushrooms! I just had some this morning with some eggs in a breakfast burrito. I don’t eat mushrooms elsewhere in the garden because I know specifically where I put the spawn and what those mushrooms look like! Super tasty and super beneficial to the garden!
Wine caps are excellent at breaking down woodchips as well, and can turn them into humus in a matter of months rather than a year. They're one of the easiest mushrooms to cultivate and can go in any garden.
Great video. The only thing is that mushrooms are moreso Saprophytic than Parasitic. Reason this is important to distinguish is because Parasites tend to take and not give. Mushrooms will exchange nutrients for the sugars they are taking from the root zone. And honestly, the plant is constantly charging the root zone with sugars that need to be consumed. So it anything, it's helping the plant more than hurting. The best part is that the mushroom will most likely be tilled in or decay into the soil somehow. Most of the nutrients will be returned to the earth. Some of which came from the wood that the mycorrhizae decayed. The plants roots cannot do this alone.
The best thing is to learn to identify them. I've found numerous types of edible mushrooms in my garden, including wood blewits in the autumn leaf piles, split gills growing on logs, amber jelly roll growing on fallen tree branches, and elegant stinkhorns growing in the woodchips alongside the wine caps I planted on purpose. This year the stinkhorns have formed huge clusters of eggs since it's been raining so much. All species of stinkhorn are nontoxic, and they don't smell if you harvest them at the egg stage. Learn Your Land has a video on how to identify and prepare them.
I actually get spent mushroom blocks from mushroom growing farms that dispose of thousands of them weekly after getting a harvest in their warehouses and coordinate with a mushroom group called Central Texas Mycological Society, to disperse thousands of spent mushroom blocks around Central Texas to gardening, mycology communities, farms, ranches, conservation chapters, organic nurseries and other environmental/ecological stewardship non-profits/partners/organizations. When seasonal temperatures are sub-80 degrees outside in Central Texas, you can still get a harvest from the blocks and introduce them to your garden safely. When temperatures are blistering hot like right now, they're best used for composting. But considering the spent blocks are made up of material like sawdust and other organic matter, they're wonderful as a compost amendment, plus the fact the blocks are alive with actual saprotrophic fungi like blue oyster, golden oyster, lion's mane, shiitake, maitake, chestnut and more. I think a single block is made up of like 60% organic matter. Having organic matter content in the range of 10-15% is what's considered really good soil, so the blocks definitely help with that aspect especially if retaining soil moisture is an issue you face. Blue Oysters, which is one of the varieties of spent blocks available to collect at the farms, have been shown to be predatory to nematodes and can be a good way of dealing with root rot nematode and still having an edible harvest of mushrooms too that's safe to consume and would cost $10/lb at grocery stores here. Lion's Mane runs $25/lb. There's actually a PBS channel called Journey to the Microcosmos that has microscopic video footage of oyster family mushrooms preying on nematodes. All the spent blocks are saprotrophs, meaning they eat dead and decaying organic matter and make those nutrients available in the soil. They're not the mycorrhizal fungi with symbiotic relationships with plants. Mushrooms are actually thought to pre-date land based plants as they were needed to break down Earth's hard surface into soil so that aquatic based plant life could more easily evolve onto terrestrial surfaces. There's hard evidence of their existence at least approximately 440 million years ago with tortotubus protuberans (PBS Eons, When Giant Fungi Ruled) and some less hard evidence that they could have existed approximately 1.5 billion years ago with some fossil records. Problem with the older fossil evidence is fungi in general don't fossilize very well, considering they break down so well into organic matter into soil themselves, and two, the fossil evidence for them consists of finding a material called chitin, which is also material that makes up other living organisms that aren't fungi. So it's hard to, in a more concrete way confirm that fungi existed 1.5 billion years ago for these reasons though it's very likely they did. Chitin is also what makes up insect exoskeletons and is one of the reasons cordyceps are so good at preying on insects. Dog vomit is actually a slime mold, in the amoeba family. They too, also eat dead and decaying organic matter, similar to saprotrophic fungi. If you're unsure what type of mushroom is around your garden bed, consider installing an identification app called iNaturalist on your smartphone. Take a top down and side to side photo of the mushroom, then flip the mushroom upside down and take a photo of it's gill structure. If you want to take it a step further, you can even dissect the mushroom in half and take a photo of that too. The app will make it's best guess as to what type of mushroom you're trying to identify. Put in your best guess even if you know it's wrong. Eventually, actual mycology experts that also use the app for their own field research, will give you a proper identification of the mushroom and update your find. Using this app helps college universities and environmental research groups collect data based on observations you upload on it and in exchange you get a more reliable ID of a mushroom that you can trust. Still wouldn't advise eating anything you're thinking of foraging unless you're 100% sure it's safe. It's not just for mushrooms either. It can be used for plant and animal observations too.
I love the way you time your videos with the season of a particular plant and also the diversity of your information! The "farmer's market scam" was very eye-opening! Keep doing what you're doing--you are my go to expert. I can see you are very educated, rather than the videos of people just growing stuff. The in-depth info is fascinating!
That squirrel on the power line at the beginning was obviously scouting out the best spot to cause a power outage... lol! This was really great stuff. Learned a lot about a topic I know very little about, so thank you! Always enjoy your videos. 🤠
We used local horse manure this early spring. Lots of mushrooms popped up later. I’m still waiting on complete mature fruit from my tomato and pepper plants to see if there was pesticide in the manure. So far it doing well. At least that’s one way of finding out if the hay the horses ate then through their manure is if the plants ( especially nightshades) will grow to full maturity is what I’ve learned so far. Any other tips would be great! Thanks Luke for another informative video 🌱
Yes, I've seen that the broadleaf herbicides used for grazing efficiency can really do a number when passed through manure. Like you said, it may not happen right away, but instead later in the crop's development. Best of luck!
Thank you for making this video. Healthy soil can only come with fungi and bacteria present. It all starts there. They eat the decaying plant material and make the nutrients in that material available to the living plants.
From coastal NSW Australia. I had access to a very old, well rotted pile of woodchips, (including massive earthworms & fungi / mushrooms) locally, about a year ago. Black gold! Borrowed, disused yard. Also, unlimited cardboard, then 2 loads of fresh w'chips that the tree trimmers added a short time later. Extending beds now (a bit late) but everything I've put in the beds, including locally collected, wild cherry tomatoes, abandoned strawberries, plus fruit n vege, for seeds & tubers, from a local charity food bank. Basically free. Everything takes off, a hundred miles an hour! Fruit trees & vines next, around the borders. Plenty of sun, luckily. As a disabled person, it's not real easy but I love watching everything grow. So healthy for me & the sandy soil.
Thanks for the info! We just had SO MUCH rain (like a weeks worth) but I’d been getting mushrooms in the bed and was a little concerned that maybe my soil was getting infected or something 😂 good to know it’s just the rain ❤
Thanks Luke. My garden is much like yours. 6" raised beds with mulched walkways. I'm on my 4th year trying to build my soil from a very poor sandy garden when we first moved here. I have got mushrooms mainly in my walkways for a couple years and it worried me. I now will look at mushrooms as an indicator that I'm heading in the right direction with soil building. I harvested two beds that had some volunteer potato plants from last year. I had a lot of night crawlers in both beds which made me happy. Thanks for all you do.
The fungus is among us in the Ozarks. I have a couple of books on identifying mushrooms but I only harvest Morchella. The morels seemed to love the sugar maples on my granny's land in Michigan. My elderly hippie sister harvests "magic mushrooms". She creates a broth and freezes it in ice cube trays.
Recently i took a picture of a mushroom that was growing on the grass in the sidewalk. Its milky white and shape like an umbrella. And listen to this, when I went to use the rest of the bag soil I noticed some white stem, it was mushrooms. Wow here you are talking about that. Pecfect timing.
I had amazing and beautiful mushrooms that grew in my back yard. They were bright white and grew about 8 inches tall and were 8 to 12 inches in diameter. Not sure if they were edible, but maybe. When I placed my 4X8 homemade raised bed where they grew I didn't see them out back anymore. I did see a few smaller ones grow out front on the property line, but I think the neighbor did not like them. They looked the same but were smaller diameter. I miss those guys. Another fine video Luke.
I mixed in some mushroom compost with potting soil before I planted up some containers this year. I had mushrooms popping up a bit later in between my flowers.
The biggest mushroom concern for most gardeners is that they’re poisonous to dogs. Secondary is mentioned here, adjust your watering. Generally, they’re a good sign your soil is doing what it’s supposed to be doing.
I actually just the other day found some puffballs that were ready to release spores and intentionally brought one back to the garden and made it explode spores everywhere. If you find a spore ready puffball do it a favor and kick it!
I have some little mushrooms growing just outside my garden. I think it's the humidity that got them to grow here. The soil seems pretty good but I found out why my pepper plants were all chewed up and not producing any fruit. I caught a big fat green hornworm in the act of devouring a leaf. It apparently also cut off the top of one of my branches that had a flower on it because that flower was nowhere to be found and I noticed a stub. Time to get some BT or Spinosad I guess.
We have had a very wet season in Southern Ontario, have watered once since June. Have noticed more mushrooms than usual. Nothing I can do about the weather but enjoy a smaller water bill this year :)
I don't have any mushrooms in my garden. I live in the PNW; but, it is on the dry side of the Cascades. I water my garden three times a week, if I get a chance. I didn't water this morning; but, might go tomorrow to water. If not, then I will definitely water on Wednesday. I'm not good at identifying mushrooms, unless they come from the grocery store. When I lived in Ohio, a friend/co-worker invited me to go morel hunting. I found one mushroom that looked like a morel. My friend said it was. When I got home, I cooked it up and ate it. Not long after, I was vomiting in the bathroom. I have not eaten a morel since. To this day, I don't know if it really was a morel or if it was a look-alike.
I have this pest to. I plant as much as in the curcubita Moschata family (Think Butternut, Seminole pumpkins etc) as those are pretty resistant to the SVB. There are tons of varieties in that family of squash and it saves me from going out everyday and getting eggs off the plants and or getting the worms out of the stems.
Fungi is on the planet for a good reason: to break down dead matter. If we did not have fungi, then dead matter would sit there in piles higher than our garbage for millenia.❤
@MIgardner What I'd like to know is whether or not those 'poisonous' mushrooms are safe to be thrown into a compost pile (the non-hot one or even the hot hot or both)?? Actually if you could add that as a 'feature' in vids where it is a relevant point to bring up that would be great. The 'can you compost it in this or that or both kinds of compost piles?' Just to let 'new' composter and potentially others know something we don't know :) Thank you
Yes, because metabolizing the toxic mushrooms is what makes them poisonous. You can safely eat crops that have been grown in soil or compost that has toxic mushrooms growing in it, since the toxins break down and the plants don't take them up. It's actually impossible to avoid having a few non-edible fungal species growing in your soil.
Hello to you FrozenWolf I love that name, dude And I do thank you for your answer though if I could ak you to clarify that point on throwing those poisonous mushrooms into the compost pile to become compost also in that compost pile? @@FrozEnbyWolf150
Thank you for all this information. I have a fairy ring in my front yard no sure it thats good or bad but I believe my big maple is slowly dying which the mushrooms feed on.
I got some for the first time this year. Freaked me out is was so gross looking. It was on my garden path on wood chips and I really thought our dog had vomited. Was I shocked when I found out it was a fungus!
Personally, I think they're pretty. I prefer to call them flowers of tan, or scrambled egg mold. They grow a bright neon yellow on the surface of my mulch after it rains. They're totally harmless.
Super wet soil this year from all the rain here on the coast. How do I dry out this soil. We actually just moved this raised box away from the fence, and it is now in much more sun. Will the sun just naturally take care of this soggy mushroom soil?
You've got some background scene stealing going on - the squirrel (don't have them here in New Zealand) and later on towards the end of the video the dinosaur hiding on the trellis caught my eye.
Be a bit of a skeptic where the farmers' markets are concerned. One of our local farmers' market sellers was offering "greens" given them by their neighbor who had this "green" growing in said neighbor's back yard. Anyone care to take a guess? ---Never mind: I'll tell you. MATURE pokeweed. Not the early fiddle-head looking growth emerging in the early, early part of the season, but MATURE pokeweed. Seller had *no idea* and was telling people it is good to eat. (Might be good, but "adult"pokeweed isn't *safe*.
Dog vomit slime mold is Fuligo septica. It is a plastid, not a mold (fungus). It can convert heavy metals to inert substances. Research is being done to see if it can be used in heavy metal chelation. It is also being looked at as a possible antimicrobial. The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida has some good information on slime mold.
Last year I found a couple but I wasn't sure if they were edible. I tried to plant mushrooms outside but I must have done it wrong cause nothing came up where I did it.
Yeah but an infestation of artillary fungus nearly took over our mulch one year and it was bad. They shoot spores into the air that can stain the siding on your house!
I see a few frogs green with black spots or are they black with green spots (I can’t tell because I scream and run away if I see them). What do I do? Leave them be?
Leave alone. They die within 48-72 hrs anyway he says and in the meantime, aiding in decomposition process in the soil and thereby adding to the overall health of the soil.
fun fact: poisonous mushrooms can be tasted and chewed as long as you spit it out. Digesting the mushroom is what causes poisoning. Obviously don’t take the risk but ive had a taste on random mushrooms for fun.
If spores make mushrooms a fungus and plants don't have spores, would that make ferns a fungus and not a plant? Because ferns have spores on the bottoms of their leaves.
Can you find a farmers market near where you live? Rooting elderberry cuttings has been a money maker for me for the last few years, and other vendors do that as well.
Also, if they grow wild where you live, you can fairly easily make your own cuttings. They root pretty easily. I would search for a RU-vid video with instructions on how to do that. You can start your own basically for free.
