Expression

Inch for inch, Japanese dry gardens pack a lot of power. But I'm glad that it's contained to a small courtyard because (inch for inch) it's not the greatest space for biodiversity or productivity.

And if it sprawled out, it would lose its magic and become a golf course.

I like a healthy balance of modernism and postmodernism. I like beauty and the sublime, but there is more to life than aesthetics. There are other things to express, and there are means for expression other than color, form and texture. I don't have to limit myself to expressing one thing either (as cool as that focus is in the dry garden).

Here are some of the things I’m trying to express in Bayside:

1. The value and coolness of local biodiversity. Leave a brush pile for the shrews. Encourage the Scrophularia. Call it performance art.

2. The dark forest myth. (It’s not clear why exactly, but this really resonates with me. The surrounding landscape and those fantasy novels I read as a kid are probably responsible.) This, at least in part, is leaving the creepy side of nature intact and the idea of artifacts.

3. Stewardship. Our need of the land, and the land’s need for us. I became a gardener a few years ago to make everything in Bayside look “natural.” I now like the idea of coppices, crops, and compost piles within the wilder landscape. I am especially drawn to traditional land management techniques like burning and coppicing. Sometimes I use a stick to dig my planting holes, no joke. This is partly responsible.

What I’m really trying to express is my idea of paradise. For me, paradise is not just “pretty.” It’s ferociously beautiful, diverse and productive. And I get to live in it.

Boletes edulis

Found another edible. Boletes edulis. Actually, my coworker, Bill, found it. He followed me home to take some plant cuttings (mostly of Ribes sangineum) and to look at some of the mushrooms on the property. (We found many cool ones including a couple of huge black/purple ones.) We said goodbyes, he drove down the hill from our house, and then called me on the phone. He had found the largest patch of Boletes edulis that he had ever seen. In our yard! For more info about B. edulis check out wikipedia.

I've chopped them up (and cut away a few maggot-infested stems) and have them ready to sautee up tomorrow with a couple of wine agarics. I'll probably eat the mushrooms with pasta.

I promise to blog soon about something other than mushrooms. Probably Frank Lake's dissertation.

First Edible Mushroom

Momentous occasion!

My first edible: the wine-colored agaric. Right in my backyard. I brought one to work today and Bill confirmed it. The wine-colored agaric has a ring, pale rosy brown gills, fibrous stuff on its stalk, and dark streaks on the top of its cap; features you can see below.

(I cut off the stalk, as opposed to just pulling the mushroom up because of some advice I'd read.)

Bill recommends cutting the mushroom strait down the middle to see if bugs have worked their way up from the stalk into the cap. Um, yes. But you know I'm eating them anyway. They're my first edible mushrooms and the damage isn't that bad (and the bugs are pretty small). Don't look too closely, though.

So I chopped up the two caps, washed the pieces in warm water, and left them to soak for a while, hoping that any lingering bugs would exit.

Whoa! Look how red the water stained after soaking them for a half hour or so. I don't know if this is the reason it's the wine-colored agaric, but it sure could be.

After they were sauteed with a bit of butter, they shrunk down quite a bit, into these black slug-like things. But they tasted good. Like an over-cooked button mushroom, but with a deeper flavor.

When I'm not cooking for anyone else, I tend to go for the bare-root sort of meals. Poached eggs and toast it is. The drink in the cup is warmed up unpasteurized (illegal!) apple cider from an unnamed apple orchard. I'm probably not the first to realize this, but an easy way to make it into hot spiced cider is to add a tea bag. Mine's ginger.

The black specks on the eggs are bugs from the mushrooms.

No. It's pepper.

Et Viola. A very satisfying meal.

A note on the top prize (golden chanterelles): A few days ago I found some mushrooms that I thought might be them, but Bill said that they were false chanterelles. Their orange was too bright and their stalks were too skinny. But I'm still deteremined to find some on the property.

Mushrooms

Here in Humboldt County, when mushroom collecting is mentioned people giggle. Ah...what kind of mushrooms?

Edibles

I'm interested in mushrooms I can eat without hallucinating or going to the hospital, so let's set the record straight. So last night I attended the Humboldt Bay Mycological Society meeting with my coworker, Bill, who knows his mushrooms well, to have a look at table displays of various fungi.

These are oyster mushrooms. They grow on dead and dying alders. Could be in our yard...

These are Golden Chanterelles. They have ridges instead of gills. Bill found gallons of them around where he lives, and is making up a big batch of cream of mushroom soup (and he's bringing some into work). He tends to find them growing near spruce trees under evergreen huckleberry and sword ferns. Could be in our yard...

Below are "Lobster Mushrooms." The red color is actually a mold that grows on other mushrooms and I guess it makes them taste good. You just have to be sure that the host is an edible mushroom! Don't know where these grow.

Bill regularly collects about six species of mushrooms and the only one besides the ones above I can remember him collecting is the Chicken of the Forest (sorry, no picture). This is a bright orange frilly shelf fungi that grows on hemlock and doug firs. Only the tips of the frill are soft enough to eat.



Other tips from Bill: Wash wild (and edible, make sure they're edible) mushrooms well under warm water and cook before eating. Steer clear of mushrooms with white gills and rings.



Inedibles



Well, I know these are in our yard.



From left to right: Strobilurus trulisatus, Pholiota terrestris, and the last two are some species of Lepiota. The scientific names of these are sketchy because the handwriting on the labels were pretty bad. (I brought in the mushrooms and had them identified). The Photinia was growing in the coastal prairie. There are also tons of what Bill calls LBMs or Little Brown Mushrooms (not easy to identify).

Well, hopefully tomorrow I'll have a chance to scrounge around the forest to see what I find. Top prize: Golden Chanterelles!

Resources:
California Fungi