We have a large, wooded yard. 5 years ago we had family over for Mother’s Day and my sister-in-law pointed over by a tree and said “are those morels?” Sure enough, there were 3 good sized morel mushrooms. I looked around the rest of the yard and found no more.
The next year, dozens came up all over the yard! Same thing the year after that. I cooked them up with onions and served them with steak, I put them in risotto, but my favorite thing was simply cutting them in half, soaking in salt water, coating in olive oil and cooking them directly on the grill- tasty! We had so many my wife even suggested trying to sell them to a restaurant to make some money, but we ended up eating them all ourselves.
I was careful to cut them at the base when I harvested them so they’d grow back, as i read to do, not just pull them completely out of the ground.
Then last year there were hardly a dozen small ones. I chalked it up to not enough rain at the key time and crossed my finger for this Spring.
But nothing. Haven’t seen a single one. I was hoping it was a late season since the long cold winter has slowed most signs of Spring, but I think our morels are no more
They will probably come back. The advice to cut them rather than pull them is, I believe, folklore. They use spores rather than roots, and just picking the morel up will ensure you spread the spores. They can stay dormant for years before they grow, though.
And they’re picky about the weather…too cool days or not enough rain, or rain only on the cold days without warm days after.
I’m not a mushrommatologist, but I think you shouldn’t panic
I agree. It’s also good practice to leave a few mushrooms unpicked - they’ll completely “ripen,” spreading their spores over a wide area.
You can also soak your freshly picked mushrooms in water (not salted) for a while before cooking them, then tip this now spore-spiked water where you’d like to encourage more morels to grow.
Made a bizzare discovery last year - my dad had been picking the “false morel” for decades - looks sorta like a morel, and tastes similar, too. We had always regarded these as just another species of edible mushroom.
Well, one day, I was reading a modern mushroom book, and found out that these things are in fact poisionous - only, the toxin is very inconsistent in effect - it varies a lot from mushroom to mushroom. However, a person could eat these things for years with no ill effects, and the next one - kills him.
Freaky to think that something you have eaten for so long is in fact poisionous.
Yes they eat wood, the species is specific to the tree type.
… if the dropped leafs and branches are cleaned up before they rot, how can you have any mushrooms ?
If you want mushrooms, compost the leaves and branches that fall from the oak trees… then use that to fertilise the lawn.
Of course, the warning for Sydney to Melbourne, Australia is that wild mushrooms are liable to be death caps, especially if they are growing under oak trees. Four people got sick enough to be hospitalized this year - last year three people died from eating wild mushroom.
Thanks for the advice! I hope they do come back someday. The area where most of them appeared is where an enormous Elm tree died and was cut down. I hear the area around dead Elms are a great area for morels to grow. Also, the area is where I cut up and chop wood, and I don’t do much cleanup of the wood scraps, Isilder
Malthus, I heard about false morels–How did they taste?
I did a lot of research when my sister-in-law found those first three morels, because the only mushrooms I had ever eaten up to then were from a restaurant or a grocery store, and I was very leery at first. But mine were the real deal-- the best way you can tell I hear, is by cutting them in half- true morels are hollow, like a rubber mold, and false morels have a fibrous cotton-like inside. But people do eat the false morels. I believe the same poison is also in true morels, but in much lower quantities, and is destroyed by cooking. That’s why you’re not supposed to eat morels raw. But with false morels how much of the poison they have is a crapshoot-- they may be ok if you cook the heck out of them but you never know.
I had an unexpected surprise a few days ago when wandering in my woods: The appearance of over a dozen morels in an open area that I’d avoided mowing the year before, because I wanted to encourage milkweed growth (so the monarchs would have something to eat).
I’d never seen morels anywhere on my farm before, much less in this area which was unwooded, open to sunshine most of the time, and far removed from dead tree trunks for at least the last 6 decades.
Yet morels they were; I double and triple checked online, honeycomb caps, hollow stems.
We cooked them up in butter last night, added cracked pepper and salt. My, they were tasty.
Oh. I’ve always put a little salt in with the water to "encourage the little “buggies” to vacate in stinging throes of death.
Why no salt?
I’ve been out a couple of times with no luck. But I haven’t given up yet. The latest I’ve ever seen them was on a Memorial Day campout. And it has been plenty cold here (MN) all month.
I’ve heard stories of people finding hundreds but I always treat those like fish stories.
I’ve dried a few before and tried “seeding” them in likely places in my yard but only one ever came back. They are unpredictable little rascals.
