After several years of scouring the woods behind my house I am starting to find the spots for the specimens at last. The hericium keeps coming back in relatively small quantities year after year, but this is the first chanterelle haul so far, and there were many (more than pictured). Beauties.
It’s been a great year for mushrooms in the northeast which is nice since I garden too and fucking everything has blight.
Everyone says to start with a club for foraging but i don’t like strangers. I feel like i could do well enough with the audubon field guide and maybe some videos and an identification app. A lot of edibles are really distinctive.
I also have been toying with the idea of guerilla inoculation of wild species, the bucket idea posted elsewhere in here is a really good one.
I am in the upper midwest so we probably have mostly the same edible species, and most of them really are pretty easy to ID.
I took a class, which was a good way to learn. Plus if I ever have enough to sell at like a farmers market or something, I can do that because I’m now a “certified mushroom expert.” Lol. But I don’t think there’s any reason someone couldn’t just learn from books, internet, and experience.
Guerilla inoculation is probably where it’s at if you’re willing to wait awhile. One thing I saw that seems kind of cool too was some folks selling tree seedlings with inoculated roots. Not sure how well that’d work but it’s a cool idea.
Mfw I moderate mycology but am not a certified mushroom expert
The class is a good idea I didn’t realize they were a thing. I’ll look into it, thanks for the tip!