Macro Mushrooms

Found under the potato vines...

Linked to Macro Monday

Getting Ready for Fall in the Garden

You know fall is around the corner when mushrooms start popping up all over the garden.We had a long, hot, dry summer but the last few weeks have been cooler with plenty of rain and grass is green again and I have been spared from the task of watering the garden every other day.

 ...group of golden mushrooms...

 This weekend I spent quite a bit of time in the garden, doing clean up, mulching, and planting seeds. I planted several different kinds of lettuce, spinach, kale, and collards. This fall I want to try row covers to help extend the fall crop into November. I have never done this before so it will be interesting to how it works.

I also thinned the spinach, broccoli raab, and carrots seedlings I planted in early August for fall crops. This is the first year I have tried growing broccoli raab.  My spring crop was a complete failure. In fact most of the spring greens were a complete failure, except for the lettuce. Broccoli raab, spinach, bok choi, and mustard all got a few inches tall then bolted. It was a cold wet spring, weather that these greens usually like, so I was surprised. I'm hoping for better luck this fall!

Broccoli raab seedlings

I dug all the potatoes who's vines had completely died back. This was every thing but the Pontiac red potatoes. The Pontiac reds, which are a late storage potato, still have green leaves, but I pulled one plant anyway just to see what was going on in the ground.

Wow, the one plant had many huge potatoes! I was very impressed. In the photo below are 8 hills of Yukon gold potatoes, and one hill of Pontiac red potatoes. I turned one Pontiac red potato into scalloped potatoes for Saturday dinner.

I prepared the soil where I had dug the potatoes for planting garlic this fall by pulling all the weeds and tilling in a few inches of compost. With any luck I'll get my garlic in the ground next weekend.

For a while a little tiny woodchuck joined me in the garden. Actually, he was right on the edge of the garden, busily munching on clover and alfalfa. I know most people wouldn't consider a woodchuck a pleasant gardening companion, but he was so tiny and cute and has been the first one I've seen since one got locked in our large garage the first week we moved here and destroyed the insulation.



...a lunch of clover and alfalfa...

We may have to do something about him later, but for the moment, I just enjoyed him, and he obviously was delighted with the alfalfa and clover. He keep one eye on me the whole time, he wasn't about to to let that stop him from getting a meal.



It has also been a delight to watch the butterflies, of which we have many. This summer I have learned so many of their names. (I have plenty more to learn, though.) Here a Pearl Crescent pauses for a moment on a blade of grass.



A Pearl Crescent butterfly.

What things are you enjoying in your garden right now?

This post is part of the barn hop over at Homestead Revival.

Tiny Toadstool Trio

I have been doing a Facebook photo challenge, where you take a photo a day and post it to Facebook. I didn't realize it would be so hard to take at least one half way decent or creative photo every single day. Some days I end up with a bunch of less then perfect or blurry photos and at the end of the day I'm trying to figure out how to fix at least one to make it worthy of being posted. I have only the simplest of photo editing software--I pretty much can only edit contrast and highlights, and can do some sharpening as well as adjust saturation. 

The best of today's photos is a very blurry photo of a group of cute little mushrooms that I found growing in my garden mulch. With editing contrast and highlights multiple times and playing with the sharpening feature I think I finally made the photo look like it was meant to be softly blurry and almost like a painting.

A Dewy Morning

Photos from my walk this morning.

Garden Update

 I think I over did the garden this year. It is twice the size of last years garden. One of these days I am going to take my husband's surveying tape and measure it. Until that happens, I haven't the slightest idea how big it is. All I know is that for the first time in my life my garden has weeds in it. Which must mean that I over did it a bit.

This photo was taken from the west end of the garden. This is the new part of the garden. You can see the piles of weeds I pulled up the other day. Next week I hope to get some of these rows mulched. This week I am just concentrating on getting the weeds pulled out before they go to seed.

This photo was taken from the east side of the garden and has mostly  been mulched. I haven't had the weed problem so much on this side. 

The garden is actually bigger than what you see in these two photos. I am not showing you the squash patch, which is almost 100% weeds minus the little clearings I made around each hill of squash.

This has been a challenging year in the garden. We started off with a very cold, late spring, then when it warmed up, the temperatures rose into the 90's then dropped back down into the 50's. This spring was all about extreme temperatures. As the result most of my early greens got stressed and bolted. I didn't get to harvest anything of the broccoli raab that I was looking forward too. (I did leave a few of the bolted plants to harvest the seeds. I will replant for fall as soon as I can.)

It has also been a very buggy year. One of the reasons I am so behind on weeding is that bug control had to come first or else I would have no vegetables left. I spent hours picking Colorado potato beetles off the potatoes and hours trying to defeat the squash vine borers. (The verdict is still out on whether or not what I am doing will work to prevent the destruction of this years pumpkin crop.)

(The first zucchini--maybe I will be able to pick it in the next few days?)

Now I am battling the cabbage worms on my cabbage and Brussels sprouts.

(Caraflex cabbage--an early conical summer cabbage. I think some of the heads will be ready to pick next week. This appears to be the cabbage worms favorite cabbage though.)

85% of my bean crop got killed off by some kind of maggot that burrowed up into the stems when the beans first sprouted. I finally replanted more green beans today. I always grow a lot of green beans to freeze and have never been able to grow enough to last us until the next bean crop, so I'm tripling the amount of beans I am growing this year. Today I replanted Royal Burgundy, Isar yellow filet beans, Tender Pick, and Burpee's Stringless Green Pod. I've never had insect damage on my green beans before and am hoping that what ever the maggot was, it won't destroy the beans I just planted.

(Royal Burgundy bean blossom.)

The tomatoes got stressed with the extreme temperatures this spring, but are finally starting to perk up and some even have tomatoes on them. They will be later than usual, but at least the plants look healthy.

(Heat Wave tomato)

All weed aren't bad, though. I've been tossing the lambs quarters in a bowl as I weed. Then at the end of the day, I de-stem them, wash and blanch them, then freeze them.  Lambs quarters is a mild tender wild green that can be used in pretty much any recipe in place of spinach. Since my spinach crop was a complete failure this spring, I am happy to have these weeds to freeze for winter soups and casseroles.

(Lambs quarters--at the perfect size for eating.)

We have been eating quite a bit out the garden already. The potatoes have come in beautifully. And we have been eating them almost every day. (I don't think it is possible to get tired of new potatoes!). My second planting of lettuce is doing well, we've started eating baby beets and carrots, and we are getting lots and lots of peas. Lots of Swiss chard and kale too. Garlic and onions still have some growing to do, but I planted enough to be able to pull them early as I need them.  On our camping trip last weekend the only things that weren't home grown that we ate were the meats and bread. Between the eggs from our chickens, the potatoes, green salad, and lots of grilled veggies, 80% of what we ate came from our little homestead. (I did pack some snacks, but we didn't even touch those.)

Then there are always the little delights that make gardening so much fun--like finding a fairy-like umbrella hiding under the red leaf lettuce:

 How is your garden doing this year?

Little Grey Elves

Green Lake Camping Trip--part 2

The evening sun reflected on the clouds and lake.

This hickory log was completely covered with little puffballs.

The woods were full of bits and pieces of discarded items--broken crocks, pieces of metal, colored glass, old zinc and glass canning jar lids, etc. According to my husband, this is an flat belt driven fan and would have been part of a old machine.

There weren't a lot of perfect fall leaves (almost everything is just yellow and brown!), but this hard maple leaf is about as perfect as you can get.

The woods where full of lots of tiny white asters, and one lone bumble bee.

This stand of red osier dogwood was practically glowing in the morning sun. It had lots of long straight twigs, and I kept looking at it thinking how pretty they would be woven into a basket!

Camping at Green Lake--part one

I'm on vacation this week and we kicked it off with a weekend camping trip on a nearby lake. The nice thing was that the campground was close enough to home so that I could run home each morning and feed the chickens and kitties. I took about 300 photos--now I just have to pick my top few favorite ones to share.

Green Lake

 I spent quite a bit of time just laying on a folding lounge and watching the shadows from the hickory trees surrounding our campsite.

The woods surrounding the lake where beautiful. There were several kinds of birches. This fungus is growing on a white birch log.

I found a stand of black birches. These have evergreen flavored twigs and my siblings and I would chew on them when we were growing up. These are the first black birches I have seen in Michigan. I want to go back and find a seeding to transplant to our 13 acres.

There where also a few yellow birch trees. I think these are the first I have seen in Michigan as well. My brothers used the curly bark as tinder to start flint and steel fires. The bark is oily and is very flammable, even when wet, so it makes wonderful tinder. In the long past, I made a few containers from the bark. It doesn't peel off in sheets as well as white birch does and isn't as durable, but the color is very pretty.

                                This fungus is growing on a still standing dead black birch.

                               There were lots of grapevines draped gracefully through the trees...

 This fungus reminded me of butterflies--and was a lot easier to photograph as it stayed put and didn't keep flying away!

Tiny Exploding Puffball

This puffball is only about the size of marble, but when it is mature, it throws off its white outer coat with an explosion.




 

 

Next to a British Soldier for size comparison.



Sesame Puffball Squares

With our woods bursting full of giant puffballs, I have been looking for ways to cook them that not only make them edible, but delectable. I made this recipe with tofu and sesame seeds last week. Something clicked in brain today-- puffball squares have the same look and consistency as tofu squares---so it is only logical that they taste just as good coated with sesame seeds and toasted.

I had the grand idea that I was going to serve these on a bed of wilted mixed greens with rice on the side. That didn't happen because my husband and I ate every single one square before I got around to heating up the rice and wilting the greens. They were a bit time consuming, but very simple to make and most definitely  took the puffball from being merely edible to being delectable.

Sesame Puffball Squares

(I didn't measure anything so I can't really give amounts)

Lightly beaten egg, with a little salt (to taste) added
Puffball cut in 1 inch cubes
sesame seeds
sesame oil for frying (I'm sure butter or olive oil would be almost as good)

Dip puffball cubes in beaten egg, then coat with sesame seeds. Fry in the sesame oil until golden brown, turning so that each side is browned.

And that is all there is to it!

Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to identify any mushroom or recommend that you eat wild mushrooms. Prior to eating any mushroom picked in the wild, check with a trusted resource and be 100% certain of the identification.

Earth Star...

an appropriate name for a cool little puffball.

Giant Puffball Steaks

Fall would not be fall without frying up the mandatory giant puffball. And this fall I have no excuse at all, seeing that our woods are almost literally exploding with puffballs. I don't think I have ever seen so many giant puffballs in one place before. The problem is I have never really liked puffballs. They have a stronger flavor than most mushrooms, and tend to get a slimy texture when cooked.. Even though I continue to follow the my parents' tradition of finding and cooking a puffball during puffball season, it is more about the novelty than anything else.  This year I decided to do a bit of research and find a recipe that not only makes them edible, but delicious.

While I didn't find a actual recipe that sounded good enough to follow, I did find some cooking tips. One suggestion was to dip large slabs of the puffball in egg then coat with breadcrumbs and fry. I took that idea and came up with my own recipe.

Breaded Giant Puffball Steaks

2 1/2 inch thick slabs from a six inch diameter puffball

3/4 cup stuffing (I used cornbread stuffing)-ground into fine crumbs using blender

1 onion cut into small pieces

1 egg

butter for frying

Lightly beat egg. Cut each mushroom slab in half and dip in egg, then press into the stuffing crumbs. Thoroughly coat each slice, by pressing each side into the crumbs. I used up the entire 3/4 cup of crumbs.

Heat butter and lightly saute the onion in the butter. Remove and fry the mushrooms steaks in the butter, until both sides are crispy and brown.

This got a five star rating from my usually picky husband. (He loves mushrooms, but in the past has not been very enthusiastic about eating puffballs.)    The puffball steaks were very crispy with a mild delicate mushroom flavor.

Seeing that we have a woods full of puffballs, I will be trying some more recipes. I found one for "pizza" using a slice of the puffball for the "crust", that sounds interesting.

Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to identify any mushroom or recommend that you eat wild mushrooms. Prior to eating any mushroom picked in the wild, check with a trusted resource and be 100% certain of the identification.