Fun with Fungus: mushroom foraging and at-home cultivation

Fun with Fungus: mushroom foraging and at-home cultivation

by LeeAnna Tatum

Who do you talk to when you want to learn more about foraging for mushrooms? Well, the guy who puts the “fun” in “fungus”, of course! Ancil Jacques of Swampy Appleseed Mushrooms has a contagious enthusiasm for all things fungi.

I met up with Ancil recently at his mushroom farm (a climate-controlled shipping container) to talk mushrooms. Specifically foraging for and growing one’s own mushrooms. While this article should not be considered a how-to on mushroom foraging, it’s my hope that it will spark an interest for learning more about this lost art and means of collecting food from the wild.

For most of us, mushrooms are a bit of a mystery. We’ve all been warned of the dangers of picking and eating mushrooms we may come across in our yards or in a walk in the woods - everything from hallucinations to instant death could occur. And there are certainly very valid reasons for those concerns. Most notably because they’re true.

However, as Ancil explained it, there are a few fairly common edible mushrooms that grow quite well here in our local climate that can be relatively easy

to identify and have few dangerous look-alikes. With some research, maybe a class with Ancil or another expert, and armed with a camera and some observational skills; you too can become a mushroom forager!

As an avid forager himself, Ancil is somewhat baffled as to why the practice is so uncommon in this region. “I’m from Southeast Georgia and it seems like why isn’t everyone taking advantage of this?” Ancil questioned. “Why is this taboo? We’re subtropical, the mushroom season here really never ends. South Georgia needs to know this.”

There are a few wild mushrooms Ancil recommends for beginners that are readily available here locally. They include the chanterelle, lion’s mane and chicken of the woods.

“There are (dangerous) look-alikes to most mushrooms, but a lot of the mushrooms we’re after have commercial value because they don’t have look alikes. It was easy for grandma to teach grandson how to look for them because if that’s what it looks like, that’s what it is. And they’re also readily available,” Ancil explained.

Although the chanterelle does have a look-alike, the jack o’lantern, the two are not usually found together in this area, though late summer and early fall is when their growing seasons coincide. But as Ancil explains it, “if you’ve ever seen one it would be hard to confuse it with the other.”

Chantarelles growing on the forest floor.

“Lion’s mane is an easy one to identify. It’s a big white, blobby pom-pom looking thing that grows on oak trees. Chicken of the woods is a shelf fungi, it looks like brackets growing on the trees - it’s bright orange. Both of those are hard to mistake,” Ancil said.

These mushrooms can be quite sought after for culinary purposes and often sell upwards of $20 per pound, yet most of us would walk right past them, or step right on them, without giving them a second thought.

While Ancil encourages individuals interested in foraging for mushrooms to do so, he also cautions that there is good reason to be careful.

“There are reasons to stay away. There’s two deadly poisonous mushrooms in the region, I’ve only ever seen one of them. Galerina marginata it’s a little brown one that grows on conifer. There’s a very prevalent one in our mixed hardwoods, it’s all white and a grown man my size can eat one and have kidney failure. So, there’s real risk out there.”

Ancil suggests that any new forager make good observations about where the mushroom was located (is it hardwood trees, pines or mixed?), take photos and consult with an expert until you have some experience identifying them on your own. It’s also a good idea to sample a small portion of a mushroom you are confident is edible before making an entire meal of them.

If foraging for wild mushrooms seems a little too intimidating or you’d like to have a supply a bit closer to home, consider cultivating your own!

While Ancil’s mushroom farm includes a sterile lab for cultivating mycelium and a climate-controlled shipping container for sprouting the mushrooms, that level of complexity is not necessary for someone who just wants to grow some mushrooms during their natural season.

All you really need are some readily attainable items, some helping hands, a little time and a shady spot in your yard. Ancil suggests that you set aside a weekend, invite some friends over or round up thekids, and turn log inoculation into a group event.

The necessary tools and components: fresh hardwoodlog cut into 4-foot segments, 40-50 inoculatedplugs per segment, a drill, and wax.

The process: each log will require approximately40-50 holes drilled large enough for the plugs tobe inserted. After inserting the inoculated plugsinto the log, seal all bare surfaces of the wood withwax. Once sealed, place log or logs in a shady spotin your yard. Make sure you choose a location thatallows for airflow or your logs will rot prematurely.After that, all you do is wait and allow the fungi timeto grow.

Tips: Ancil suggests Amazon as a good source for finding the inoculated plugs, they have several varieties available including the shitake and lion’s mane which does well in this climate. (He also sells inoculated logs at his booth at the Forsyth Market.) Each properly prepared log will likely produce between 1 - 5 pounds of mushrooms per year and the logs should last approximately 5 years.

When it comes to the wonderful world of mushrooms,there is a lot to be learned, but that doesn’tmean you should feel intimidated by the prospectof foraging or cultivating your own. Do your research.Take the opportunity to learn from someonewho is already an expert. Take photos and takenotes. Be cautious, but venture forth!