400g of St. George’s Mushroom / VårfagerhattSand leek / Bendelløk, even though smaller, are more productive than leeks / purre here
Two gourmet ingredients (and many more) for tonight’s green pasta sauce are just doing their own thing in my edible garden with little interference from me, apart from the picking. First the patch of St. George’s Mushroom (vårfagerhatt; Calocybe gambosa) growing under a large birch tree next to a large patch of nettles and then sand leeks (bendelløk; Allium scorodoprasum) which self-sow from bulbils on the seakale bed (strandkål; Crambe maritima) in the seaweed mulch. The St George’s mushrooms are growing to the right of the chair The seakale / strandkål bed is full of sandleeks / bendelløk
It’s ridiculous but it’s been such a busy summer that I hadn’t found time for foraging mushrooms in the forest this year until last Saturday 12th October. We took advantage of our helper Aleksandra Domańska from Sweden / Poland to harvest the ridiculous amounts of winter chanterelles / traktkantarell Craterellus tubaeformis in the forest at the moment. The first we picked were frozen but it became warmer as the day progressed. We returned to our car pool vehicle after several hours with 24kg of fungi, mostly winter chanterelles but also with a good number chantarelles / kantarell. two types of hedgehog fungi / piggsopp, one sheep polypore / sauesopp (Albatrellus ovinus), one cep / steinsopp and a few yellowfoot / gul trompetsopp (Craterellus lutescens). Some of the pictures in the forest were taken by Cathrine Kramer from The Center of Genomic Gastronomy who has been filming my autumn activities for a couple of days.
Some of the winter chanterelles drying on the living room floor after cleaning!
Some of the winter chanterelles drying on the living room floor after cleaning!
Some of the winter chanterelles drying after cleaning!
Chantarelles / kantarell
Hedgehog fungi / piggsopp
Cep / steinsopp
Winter kantarell / traktkantarell
One giant winter chantarelle with multiple caps
The winter chantarelle with multiple caps (last picture)
Winter kantarell / traktkantarell
Chantarelles / kantarell
Prime winter kantarell / traktkantarell habitat in damp mossy spruce (gran) woodland
We met this alien in hunter proof gear and satellite dish!
Spent yesterday afternoon harvesting winter chantarelles (traktkantarell) as much as we could carry out of the woods and almost all were frozen solid making some unusual sounds in the woods as they fell….
Wild Enoki, Oca, Hablitzia, wild buckwheat sprouts, Allium nutans with dandelion, garlic chilis mixed with scrambled eggs for a delicious home grown and foraged lunch! Enoki is one of the hardiest fungi appearing often midwinter in mild winters. Also known as velvet shank (vintersopp in Norwegian, meaning winter fungus; Flammulina velutipes). Many had been reporting finding this species recently, and I too found some when I visited the botanical garden the other day! It’s difficult to believe that this is the same fungi as Enokitake or Enoki, sometimes offered in supermarkets and one of the most popular cultivated fungi in the Far East. The cultivated fungi are long and white as they are grown in the dark in an enriched CO2 environment which gives longer stalks.
Spending so much time in the 3 gardens I look after – The Edible Garden; The World and Demonstration Gardens at Væres Venner Community Garden and the Allium Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Gardens in Trondheim – I don’t get into the surrounding forest so often. Yesterday, we had a fantastic day foraging fungi in the forest nearby in Malvik and the forest shared with us and these will mostly be dried. The following edibles were picked: Winter chanterelle / traktkantarell (grows in damp mossy locations in the forest) Gul trompetsopp / yellow foot (on the edge of bogs) Chantarelle / Kantarell – a bit late for this, but we nevertheless found a few patches Rødgul piggsopp / terracotta hedgehog Piggsopp / hedgehog fungus (Hydnum rufescens)
At last, after the warm summer the porcinis (ceps / steinsopp; Boletus edulis) are coming up in large numbers in the woods, the best year since 2005! I’d read the reports on Facebook, so now is the time to harvest and dry these amazing fungi in as large amounts as possible to last until the next time, hopefully not another 16 years! Almost all were in good condition. They are often infected with a parasitic fungi that makes them inedible! In addition, we found a large patch of yellow foot / gul trompetsopp or gul trompetkantarell (Craterellus lutescens), at a place I’d picked many some years ago. Not a fungi I find every year. There were also some chantarelles (kantarell) and a few puffballs (røyksopp). The walk home with a very heavy load was thankfully mostly downhill! Now for the biggest job of cleaning them before drying!
A new species of fungi discovered growing on an old wild hazel nut in the garden this week, nut disco (Hymenoscyphus fructigenus), not found earlier in Malvik kommune. Thanks to Edel Humstad for the ID.
I’ve already shown that all the windows are full of drying seeds at the moment, now it’s standing room only as the tables and chairs are now full of drying fungi :)
The forest has unlimited supplies of winter chanaterelles (traktkantarell) at the moment, so making the most of it and drying as many as we can! They’re now much larger than last time!
It was a busy weekend picking our winter supplies of winter chantarelles (traktkantarell) in the forest. This abundant species is mycorrhizal, associated in Norway with spruce, usually in mossy woods.
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
The St George’s mushrooms are growing to the right of the chair 
The seakale / strandkål bed is full of sandleeks / bendelløk
(Hydnum rufescens)
