Morels, anyone?
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Well........they should've at least cuffed him for frying them with brown sugar & cinnamon!
The squirrels and deer in my woods all need to be arrested.
We used to find baskets of morels around our house under Sycamore trees. Then one year all I found was one huge morel, taller than a beer can. Since then it seems like they have went extinct. Haven't one since then.
Last morel on our property for years.
Last morel on our property for years.
Here it is, the last morel I ever found. That was at least 3 or 4 years ago.
Here is what we found every year before that.
I remember some years ago that the cops raided a little old lady's garden somewhere and pulled up all her okra plants for marijuana.
Some 30 years or so ago they flew a helicopter over my great uncle's and spotted his brush arbor he had built over his ginseng patch in the edge of the field. They came on foot and raided it. Fortunately they realized what it was when they saw it. Thereafter we called it "the pot patch."
About 7-8 years ago, Knowing there were a bunch of morels in our yard, I told my boys that I’d pay them a 1/4 for every morel they found. I proceeded to show them pictures of what to look for, then sent them out to play. Here is what they so proudly came and got me for. Got to start them young by setting them up to be successful.
Jim, it's hard to tell from your pictures but you definitely want to cut the morels and leave a stump. Pulling them usually removes all spores, and if you predominantly pulled the morels instead of cutting you probably inadvertently removed the source for your morels. Plus, they are easier to clean without the dirty stump.
We get lots of golden morels in the river bottoms, and they get pretty big. Waiting for high water to recede to try for those. The forest fire areas get the black morels (along with a few others like Lady Grays) by the millions the year after the fire. Got 10 gallons of blacks last weekend in about 2 hours of picking, nothing above 5000' so there's lots of season yet to come. You can smell the morels driving down the road. It's awesome.
Wow, yes I could have pulled the stumps. They sure did not come back. Don't live there anymore but have a woods here that usually produces a few morels.
I doubt you could have taken all the spore supply away, but it is good practice to leave the stumps. And by the way those are some dandies in your photos.
Those spores are like time bombs in the soil, just waiting for whatever it is that sets them off. Goldens are fairly consistent, while the blacks out here really like fire but don't require it. I will be trying again tomorrow, weather providing. Just got to prepare myself for mosquito hell.
Are you hunting these mushrooms in Montana?
Yes, I live in Missoula and there were fires in every direction from here last year. Bumper crop of morels is one of the benefits of putting up with non-breathable air last August/September.
On 'normal' years I get a list of prescribed burn locations from the USFS and try to hit some of those, and hit the river bottoms pretty hard. The rivers have flooded a lot of the bottoms this year so last year's fires are my target. I'll try to take some pics tomorrow if it's any good.
