It’s been a gentle September, a couple of chilly nights aside. With the mellow temperatures and increased rainfall has come an amazing mushroom foraging season. The late autumn mushrooms are appearing earlier and the late summer mushrooms are still out in droves, so that I can’t walk from the house to the garage without coming across an edible mushroom. After only wandering within a 500-meter radius of the house for a couple of hours, I had 4 full baskets totaling 6.26kg of mushrooms. Guess who is spending the weekend preserving all that?
1. The golden chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius) is plentiful in Finnish woodlands and easy to spot once you know what you’re looking for. This year, they have gone completely nuts. Clumps are growing on the neighbor’s lawn. I took out the garbage and came back with a handful of chanterelles. Luckily, they are also our favorite and can be used in countless different ways. Mushroom pasta and risotto are especially popular in our household.
2. Funnel chanterelles (Craterellus tubaeformis) have been growing very large this year, many as big as the yellows. They can pretty much be substituted for each other in just about any recipe. The funnels usually don’t start sprouting until next month, but I’m not complaining.
3. Another chanterelle relative, the hedgehog mushroom is also plentiful in our woods. The one in the picture is the more common Hydnum repandum but we also have a clump of Hydnum rufescens growing under our clothes drying rack. These first three are all pretty much interchangeable in recipes and have very similar flavors, though I like the firm texture of the hydnums the best.
4. A group picture of all the different species sorted into their own baskets. Also included so I can show the two porcinis (Boletus edulis) I found next to the swing set in the top left basket.
5. These are not the yellow and red ‘Jackpot’ gladiolus I expected when planting these bulbs, but I prefer whatever it is I ended up with. They fit in better with the color scheme of the rest of my plants, honestly. Don’t tell that to my son, though — he chose the bulbs because he likes orange.
6. The double red begonias finally decided to show themselves, right when I’d given them up as a lost cause. I admit that they are pretty, though perhaps they might just stay on the terrace in a pot next year.
Thanks for visiting and please do check out what the other SoSers are doing over at Jim’s page!
Little Blue and White House 
27 responses to “Six on Saturday | 23rd September 2023”
I love mushrooms but wouldn’t feel confident picking them in the wild. I keep promising myself I’ll treat myself to some mushroom ‘logs’ – then I forget about them. How will you preserve yours?
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You should! The kit we got required quite a bit of spraying, but we were growing it inside in winter when it’s the driest. I bet they would do wonderfully in late summer and autumn when it’s wet and cool. I usually just fry mine on a pan with some butter (although I had some extra duck fat this time, so used that) until most of the moisturize sweats out, as plain as possible so that they can be used in any recipe. Then portioned into 500mL freezer bags, which is about how much we use for one batch of pasta or risotto. If I get more of the little funnels this year, though, I might try dehydrating them and grinding them into a powder to make mushroom salt!
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Mushroom envy here, how fantastic to be confident enough to pick your own. Mushroom risotto is one of my favourites!
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It definitely helps to be taught by friends who have been doing it for generations! I still sometimes bring things over for my neighbor to look at, in case I’m not certain about identification. Finns are usually taught the basics in ecology class and inevitably have family members who gather huge amounts of berries and mushrooms to share. It’s my husband’s grandmother in our family and now, apparently, me 😀
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A lovely crop of mushrooms, well done.
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Thank you! I feel a bit like a crazed squirrel tucking all these bags of fried mushrooms in the freezer, but know that it will be worth it this winter 😀
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Bravo on the mushrooms. My father knew how to forage for them. He was trained by our Eastern European ancestors. Alas, I am a novice with little experience.
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Yes! I have to say, the Eastern European countries are even braver and more knowledgeable when it comes to mushroom foraging — there’s a lot of cultural exchange in the eastern half of the country and they know all kinds of preparation methods involving soaking and boiling and pickling to make seemingly any mushroom edible. I’m very much an intermediate, and stick to the ones that are easily identifiable and have few lookalikes. I try to learn a new mushroom every year, though, as a challenge.
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That’s quite a crop of mushrooms! My SIL gave me 2 mushroom-growing kits one Christmas and, even after dutifully following all instructions, I got nothing. We’re too dry it seems!
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Oh no! I grew a pink oyster kit over Christmas one year, too. It did take a LOT of misting to keep that thing happy, but we managed to get a crop out of it eventually. They’re fun, but I can see how a drier climate would make that part even more challenging.
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An impressive fungi forage and wow to the golden chanterelle. I think I could identify a field mushroom but that’s about it!
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Thank you! You see, I wouldn’t dare to pick a field mushroom because they look too similar to some poisonous ones and we’re always told to avoid the white ones just in case 😀 So anyone who can tell them apart is doing pretty well!
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Those mushrooms look fantastic, how wonderful to be able to find them all locally like that! I have always been tempted to have a go at growing some but I’ve heard it can be very hit and miss…
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It’s pretty cool — whenever guests are staying during the right season, it’s always fun to take them into the woods right outside our front door and collect some mushrooms for lunch. Nothing like free and fresh, especially when I see how much wild mushrooms go for at the supermarket. I’ve grown pink oyster mushrooms from a kit before, during a year when we didn’t have much of a wild harvest. They were really tasty and it was fun watching them grow right on the kitchen counter, but you do have to be very meticulous about keeping them misted. I’d definitely like to try having a cultivated mushroom bed one of these days, it can’t be more hit or miss than tomatoes!
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What fabulous foraging bounty! 🌸💞 I like the gladioli you ended up with too!
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Thank you, I am very excited to have a good stockpile for this winter 🙂
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Nice mushroom picking! These are varieties that we also have around here. Hydnum repandum is called “Pied de Mouton” (literally “sheep’s foot ” ) and not hedgehog mushroom. It’s funny to see other names givento mushrooms. In proportion, of the 4 varieties that you presented, these are the funnel chanterelles and boletus that we have the most.
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Thank you! That makes sense — my French coworkers are very enthusiastic about mushroom season and most are quite good at finding and identifying them as well. I might have picked up the habit from them as much as the Finns 🙂 In Finnish, Hydnum repandum is called “vaaleaorakas” (literally just “light toothed mushroom”). There’s also sheep polypore (Albatrellus ovinus) which is called lampaankääpäa (“dwarf sheep” or something like that), pretty common earlier in the season. Do you have a favorite?
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I do like ceps / boletus of course, the Amethyst Deceiver ( Laccaria amethystina ) and Black trumpet (Craterellus cornucopioides)
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Wow, I’ve never seen Laccaria amethystina before, what a pretty color. I having been trying to find Craterellus cornucopioides for years but I don’t think we have it in our woods. It is apparently a big year for them, with many people in other parts of the country finding huge baskets, so I am determined to keep searching!
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At this time of year, the black trumpets are not ready to appear. I often see them around December when the temperatures drop a lot. Not easy to find, they can be seen around dead trees that have fallen into the ground, especially hornbeams. For laccaria, they often appear in November. (under the beeches and hornbeams )
Happy mushroom hunting!
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Your mushrooms all look delicious. I wish I knew enough to dare pick some!
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It’s a fun excuse to go on long forest walks, too! There are several foraging courses available in our area, where they take out people in groups and identify mushrooms so that they get some experience. I have a feeling there must be plenty in the UK too, though foraging laws are a little stricter too.
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I’m in Bavaria, Germany and lots of people here know at least a few types well enough to collect them. No courses available near me, sadly. Where are you located Angela?
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Oooh, Germany! Yes, I heard that it is very popular there too 😀 We are in Finland, where the entire country hides in the woods for a good portion of the year. I actually learned from friends and neighbors, since the courses are mainly in Finnish.
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Oh yes, of course. Now I remember you are in Finland. I had a choice of a job in Germany or in Finland back in 1993… I chose Germany because I spoke some German, but have always wondered how life might have turned out if I had taken that job! I am very happy here though! 😃
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We were thinking of moving to Stuttgart for a while 😀
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