Amanita Fears
I went to the plot this weekend with the intention of digging over acres of land ready for mammoth spud burying activities on Good Friday but the ground was too soggy for me to bother. I did a bit of shed tidying instead and laid out a load of the bargain seed potatoes that Dad and I bought from B&Q.
I had to dispose of a load of King Edwards as they were black and soggy with the blight. No wonder they appeared to be such a good bargain.
The shitake mushrooms had ballooned over the past week and had turned a touch slimey. They were splattered with mud from the rain as well so weren’t altogether appealing. Not having tasted them yet I thought I’d overcome my reticence and cook them up with a few sausages.
I didn’t really enjoy them too much. They tasted mushroomy enough but it occurred to me during the cooking process that I didn’t really have a clue what shitakes looked like. They did appear to be growing from one of the dowells that I had inserted but as they were alone it could be possible that a stray variety may have self seeded itself in the log – perhaps a highly poisonous fungus of the deadly variety?
I love mushrooms but this sort of russian roulette with the foraged specimens does really put me off my lunch. I’m not dead yet but them Amanita phalloides takes 6 days to wipe you it, I think I’m on day 3, so watch out for a long delay in blog posting.
Yikes!! I got a mushroom log as a present one year and it never produced a single mushroom, so well done on having something to harvest.
they don’t look like death caps to me…i’m sure you’ll be fine.
Hope things are still okay today. I’m sure they will be.
Hate to say this but last year i bought my seed potatoes from b&q *never again* I bought the same variety as my first year and they were rubbish. Made me wonder just how long they have them stored.They were tasteless and the yield was much smaller than the previous year. I dont think the weather had anything to do with it..
I’m sorry to say this made me laugh out loud – not the potatoes, that’s a disaster, but the shitake/amanita fear. We had a mushroom log a few years ago and it took two years to do anything and on the day we were going to harvest the four measly mushrooms, the boy dog beat us to it and cocked his leg on it! End of mushroom log …
ok is this a test? you’ve not blogged in a while…those mushrooms. You ok out there?
I’m worried too. It’s been almost a month since last blog post and mushroom meal.
oops, sorry, still perfectly healthy.
Too wet to dig much but I’m going to don wellies regardless on Friday so there should be another posting soonish.
Thanks for the messages.
Your poor shed! Good to see it didn’t put you off though, I have only just ventured back into the garden during an unusual sunny patch this morning, and now it’s bucketing it down again! I just don’t have your will power
x