Cultural: Mushroom picking -- a Polish pasttime

This year during the month of September there was not much going on in the woods behind our house as far as picking mushrooms goes because it was so dry. Mushrooms need to have some moisture in order to come up.

Once it rains, overnight, it seems, mushrooms will show up seemingly overnight.

I was walking back from the garden when I noticed in our own yard several mushrooms which I hadn’t seen the day before as we recently got a bit of rain.

So let me share with you these pictures.

Wait - before I go on - No, we don’t pick them. Mike, my husband used to pick them but then gave them to our neighbor man who was elderly and knew his mushrooms whether they were good or deadly. Since we don’t know for sure, we don’t actually eat any of them.

I have not studied any mushrooms really, as I have no no desire to take up picking mushrooms as a hobby. We’ve eaten people’s mushrooms in their homes and many of them are quite slimy. I’ll just keep buying my mushrooms from the grocery store, if that’s okay. I’ll do it even if it isn’t okay. :)

There were quite a few of these in our yard.

I only saw one of these -


Then I noticed these -

but the biggest and most amazing growth in our yard is this - It’s old by now, but I’ve just left it there, admiring it from a distance.

I’ll keep my eyes open in the next few days before it gets too cold and see if I can spot any more different ones in our yard!

Have you ever gone mushroom picking? How did you learn which ones were good and which ones were not?

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!




Becky Petersen2 Comments