Several mushrooms appeared in our LAGG vegetable and fruit garden. One of our Garden Keeper volunteers found the one pictured above.

We have had an abundance of rain this winter, so it’s a fine mushroom year.

All the mushrooms have been non-poisonous, a few are decent edibles. All are saprophytic (decomposers), which means they are helping our garden by breaking down larger organic material, mostly plant material: mulch, leaves, twigs. That helps restore helpful and healthy compounds to our soil.

Unless you live in an oak or pine forest, you are unlikely to find seriously poisonous mushrooms or the choice ones in your garden. Those are mycorrhizal mushrooms, which have a direct connection through their hyphae to the plant roots. This connection and partnership which is a symbiosis benefits both the fungus and the plant. Chanterelles, morels, giant puffballs, truffles are all mycorrhizal.

The cap appearance of the mushroom, gill color, spore color and the volva (end of the stem in the ground) are useful in identifying mushrooms.