Wild harvest: morels, oysters, and shaggies

One of my favorite things to find in the forest are mushrooms. Oyster mushrooms and shaggy manes are common in Northeast Washington. Morels are plentiful, too, but they require special circumstances to harvest.

A morel mushroom emerges from deep forest litter on the Colville National Forest.

 

Oyster mushroom experiment

A friend of mine dropped off some mushroom compost at Gardens at Gus Garcia community garden a few weeks ago. The spent material contains mycelium from a commercial mushroom operation in Austin called LoGro Farms. They turn organic byproducts, like spent beer grains, into food. A week or so after adding the mushroom compost to the community garden compost pile, oyster mushrooms fruited.