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Curious about your 'Hardy garden mushroom'

by Nikki Crosby
(Oregon, US)

Your site was 1 of my top results while
doing an image search through Google. The image I used was a fairly poor picture that I took of some mushrooms growing by my designated yard debris dump area. I noticed them last year also but they were already past their prime. I'm trying to identify them because they smell like white button mushrooms, they're thick, firm and I'd love to harvest them if edible.
I just wanted to share since we seem to have the same or very similar mushroom volunteers growing. I'm going to pick 1 today for a spore print and better identifying pictures.

*I live in pacific northwest Oregon and the picture was taken around May 22, 2024.

I enjoyed reading about your project. I love that you were able to get a young teen involved, engaged and that she enjoyed it. That isn't always an easy task. Thank you for your time.
- Nikki

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May 30, 2024
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your mushroom
by: Caroline

Dear Nikki

Forgive my pre coffee lack of focus in the last response.

Your mushroom does look similar to the ones we had, which may have come in with the horse manure. There are a lot of mushrooms which look similar though.

It is exciting and very curious that the search plucked our images out of the ether. If you do manage to get an ID I would love to know.

It may be about species traveling the globe, and if so, the when and how must be fascinating. Did spores travel on the wind, or in a horse's stomach, or in their feedstock ? Perhaps the mounted police bought American police horses ? Or earlier than that, some American horses came to the West Coast. I smell an interesting story if one could only get to the bottom of it.

Caroline

May 30, 2024
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Thank you Nikki
by: Caroline

Hi Nikki

So lovely to hear from you. As you can gathter I'm no mushroom expert, just very curious about growing everything, and biodiversity in the garden.

We had large edible self propagating mushrooms in our garden for years and then they slowly disappeared. I think they came in with the horse manure we were bringing onsite in trailer loads, free from the mounted police farm on the west coast. My mom 94 and a west coast child, claims they have enormous edible mushrooms.

I never could get a proper identification on them but they did not fit into the description of any local toxic mushrooms. It was probably risky to try them nonetheless,as fungi are one of the most diverse life forms on the planet. A lot are probably unidentified, but I'm pretty confident that a mushroom the size of a soup plate would have been by now.

The mushrooms in your area are likely to be totally different to those found here, but there are some ubiquitous types which have taken advantage of globalization (clever things not so ?)

It may be an Amanita and they have a number of toxic members in the Genus.

Do lots of research on your local mushrooms and the invaders found in your area. Make a point of checking that it is NOT one of the deadly ones. Perhaps ask the advice of a local mushroom guru who may know that one by sight.

Good luck and be safe.

By the way, the oyster mushroom growing effort was a total failure, beyond something indescribable that came up in the compost which may have been oyster.

I have since tried oyster plug spawn in logs, which have to be inoculated at just the right time. This expensive and time consuming experiment was also a failure.

My hat off to all the magicians who succeed at controlling the of growing mushrooms.

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