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….
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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.
On Sunday, we went for a walk up to a mountain farm (seter) near to the lake Foldsjøen in Malvik with the main aim to gather alpine bistort (harerug) bulbils (Polygonum viviparum / Persicaria vivipara) to dry for the winter. This is one of the 80 plants in my book and I grow various accessions of this plant also in my garden! See also my post on 25th June: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=22680
You can often find large quantities of this plant in open sheep pasture and dampish meadows. I hadn’t been to this “seter” before and right enough there were large amounts of this plant, although the bulbils were still not fully grown. We walked from Verket, an outdoor museum on the site of Mostadmark Jernverk, the site of an old iron furnace (see https://www.malvik.kommune.no/mostadmark-jernverk.6168342-478994.html) up through the forest past Hulåsen to the seter, returning via Slåttdalen and returning along the side of the lake. We didn’t meet a single person or car all the way! At the end you can also see a number of pictures and films of nature and some fungi we found along the way!
Here’s a short film showing thousands of flowerheads in a damp meadow (the flowers are sterile, the plant almost only multiplying vegetatively by bulbils):
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