Mycology Apprentice for Charlotte NC or Asheville

I am looking for anyone engaged in foraging for cultivation in the Charlotte NC area.

Welcome to Permies, David!

Would you like to expand on your one sentence post? Most of the foraging I do is in the Aiken-Augusta area, and I don't get up to Charlotte very often. What are you trying to collect, and what luck have you had raising them on other media?

Thanks a lot for the welcome,

I like eating mushrooms. Shitakes, portabella, all the funky dried ones from Japan, and whatever else is at the market. Last year in North Carolina I saw the ground blossom with thousands of mushrooms of numerous shapes and sizes. I wanted to eat them. Naturally, I have an eye on self preservation as much as filling my belly so I did not eat a single one. I also recognize that different regions have different flora and fauna (I am not sure what a mushroom is flora or fauna), so I was looking for people that may be in my locale that I could meet up with (I guess I should look at meetup.com; which now I recall does have a group) to forage, safely.

So far as cultivation I saw a really thick and cool book in a bookstore going out of business all about mushroom cultivation. I spent about an hour looking at it before I decided $50 was too much. I should have offered $10. Other than working in virology laboratory in college and taking microbiology courses I have not cultivated any fungi, purposefully. ( had a leaky bathroom in a tenement I occupied in San Diego and it grew a tremendous amount of fungi, stachybatrus to be semi-accurate). I am fairly certain I could successfully cultivate mushrooms though. Actually, now that I think about it I had a lot of mushrooms coming up in my garden after using mushroom compost. (so, I guess I have cultivated mushrooms, I should have eaten those.) I would not use it in my garden again though because I now understand that there are a lot of pesticides and anti-biological agents used in mushroom cultivation.

I posted on these threads to introduce myself a bit and start to trade information. I would not be obtuse to collecting mushrooms in Georgia, except for the cost of the transportation. Not even the time, but until I get my battery powered solar powered auto done I have to buy the $3.29 gasoline (which is way too expensive for the cost of production).

David Amos wrote:I am not sure what a mushroom is flora or fauna

The answer is neither, fungi are their own kingdom, separate from plant or animal. That said, you're off to the right start, looking for someone to go mushrooming with. I have to confess, I don't have much luck on my forays. I never come back with a 5 lb hen-of-the-woods, usually if I come across a delectable chanterelle, there are 3 or 4 puny specimens that are not nearly enough for any recipe.

The best advice I have for now is to keep your eyes up, not down when looking for edible mushrooms. This is the season for wood ear mushrooms and you can find them on oak branches, some on the tree and those recently fallen. I'm fortunate to have them colonizing the oaks around my house, so that if a branch comes down in a storm, it invariably has a bunch of wood ears on it -- enough to actually cook with! It's not like you are going to mistake it for an inedible variety, they are pretty unique looking. If you have ever had hot and sour soup at a Chinese restaurant, wood ears are considered essential for that recipe.

David, you need a guide on identifying mushrooms.The one I use is Common Edible Mushrooms by Clyde M Christensen Published by the University of Minnesota, 4th printing 1964. He teaches how to make spore Print as the first step in identifying mushrooms. following his instructions I have safely tried a few new ones and discarded more because the first rule is never to eat one you are not sure about. His list of the foolproof four is very helpful and encouraging. Then he is explicit in identifying 41 more varietys Surely with all the current interest in foraging there is at least one guide available now.