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Central Virginian New to Mushrooming


angela

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Hi!  I'm began hunting mushrooms last summer.  My husband and I bought about twelve acres of wooded land last summer and saw a bizarre, blaze-orange, cabbage-looking mushroom on a dead log on our property last summer.  I took pictures because it was so strange.  My husband "hangs out" at a forum for people interested in primitive man and their skills.  Foraging is one of their areas of interest and he posted the picture there.  Immediately, people told him it looked to be a chicken-of-the-woods, and it was very good to eat.  We researched it, concluded there wasn't anything else it could be, and went back to our property the following weekend.  Well, it had decomposed too far and got to buggy to be worth picking, but it began our interest in finding good-to-eat (and good-to-photograph) mushrooms.

Since then, I've been reading mushroom books and field guides, watching videos, and searching the Internet for more information about mushrooms, especially edible mushrooms.  That's how I found this forum last winter.  I joined a few weeks ago, and I finally decided to introduce myself instead of just lurking.

We've found chanterelles, boletes, more chicken-of-the-woods, an umbrella polypore, and oyster mushrooms on our property, among other things.  Right now, oyster mushrooms seem to be the only thing we find around town or in our woods.  I even found one on a dead part of my fig tree in my back yard a few weeks ago.  

I imagine I will find many mushrooms again when it warms up.

I've tried to include a photograph of that first chicken-of-the-woods to see if I can do it.  I am very much not a computer person.

 

chickenofwoods.jpg

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On 2/8/2017 at 9:55 AM, angela said:

Hi!  I'm began hunting mushrooms last summer.  My husband and I bought about twelve acres of wooded land last summer and saw a bizarre, blaze-orange, cabbage-looking mushroom on a dead log on our property last summer.  I took pictures because it was so strange.  My husband "hangs out" at a forum for people interested in primitive man and their skills.  Foraging is one of their areas of interest and he posted the picture there.  Immediately, people told him it looked to be a chicken-of-the-woods, and it was very good to eat.  We researched it, concluded there wasn't anything else it could be, and went back to our property the following weekend.  Well, it had decomposed too far and got to buggy to be worth picking, but it began our interest in finding good-to-eat (and good-to-photograph) mushrooms.

Since then, I've been reading mushroom books and field guides, watching videos, and searching the Internet for more information about mushrooms, especially edible mushrooms.  That's how I found this forum last winter.  I joined a few weeks ago, and I finally decided to introduce myself instead of just lurking.

We've found chanterelles, boletes, more chicken-of-the-woods, an umbrella polypore, and oyster mushrooms on our property, among other things.  Right now, oyster mushrooms seem to be the only thing we find around town or in our woods.  I even found one on a dead part of my fig tree in my back yard a few weeks ago.  

I imagine I will find many mushrooms again when it warms up.

I've tried to include a photograph of that first chicken-of-the-woods to see if I can do it.  I am very much not a computer person.

 

chickenofwoods.jpg

That's a beauty!

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  • 1 month later...

I know I'm like two months late posting this but it's nice to see folks from my area. Great finds and photos. We have lots of good veriety in central VA. My first year was a blast.  I'm in and out but I look forward to seeing if we are finding similar species at the same times.

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