When I got up this morning, it was just an ordinary Wednesday. I always take my mother to get her hair done early on Wednesday. But as we left for the beauty shop, I saw one of the biggest mushrooms in my yard, I had ever seen. I grew up seeing wild mushrooms in our yard, pasture and woods but from a distance it looked like a soccor ball that a neighbor's child had kicked into the yard.
Since mushrooms are one of my favorite foods, I began to ponder how (especially one this size) and why it sprang up suddenly in my yard. As a true novice gardener, I was facinated at what I discovered.
Mushrooms feed on living or decaying food matter and have two major parts the mycelium and the fruiting body. The fruiting body is the cap and the mycelium is the stem. The cap produces spores that are carried away by air, afterwards the fruiting body or cap dies and decays. Only a small number of the spores find the right amount of soil and moisture to produce, resulting in few mushrooms growing at the same place. Often the mycelium dies in place and reproduces later on the spot.
I've always known that wild mushrooms can be poisonous, but I found out that if your an agarist (mushroom expert) you can tell the good from the bad. Also there is a "Mushroom Club of Georgia" that meets once a month, if you would like to learn more about wild mushrooms growing in Georgia.
Until next time...........
Happy Gardening 2012!
Posted by Wilma Smith
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