Whenever I'm going mushroom hunting and picking, I am up early - right after the sun rises. I make green tea plus a few sandwiches to bring with me for lunch. Mushroom hunting happens to be a time intensive undertaking so a couple of hours involving open-air activity on a fresh air makes me starving:) I grab my gear put together the previous evening and go. To be able to get around wasting cherished daybreak time I carry my snacks along with me and eat it on the road.

It is quite intelligent to get started with mushroom hunting as early as possible because fresh early morning lumination helps you to discover edible mushrooms and fresh air aids you actually to sense these. The other mushroom pickers will not bother you and through lunch break you are going to be finished allowing the complete second half of the day for cleaning up as well as preparing mushrooms.

And so, I get to the particular chosen woodland and I take a look at the trees and shrubs. I head off on the way to pine and spruce trees checking at the soil which usually will be coated by pine and spruce needles. At times, here and there I notice green moss. I check these spots with moss foremost as there is more humidity that mushrooms appreciate. I look for the convex (outwardly curved) shaped mushroom cap (the majority of of wild edible pore fungi have convex cap form). It can be tinted in any kind of shade of brown from light yellow-brownish till dark-brown. Among pine trees and shrubs are more frequent wild mushrooms with dark brown convex cap.

Then I continue towards oak trees and shrubs where I take a look for convex mushroom cap shape of the colors as explained earlier on. This is fairly more challenging activity simply because in the woodland with larch trees generally there tend to be a tremendous amount of leaves on the land surface and mushroom heads now have theirselves masked by way of having colours of these leaves. Therefore, I have to browse meticulously to the ground, turn the foliage across if I suspect hidden mushroom there. Amongst oak trees are actually much more typical wild mushrooms with light or dark brown heads.

And immediately after that I go nearer to birch trees and shrubs, where the pore fungi have more light brownish or reddish colored cap.

Wild mushrooms from Boletus family are just about all edible along with delicious. This is precisely why they tend to be so precious to any wild mushrooms hunter!

After I uncover wild edible mushroom I cut it with my pocket knife (it needs to be cut so as to avoid destruction of the spawn left behind). I cut it as close to the floor as possible making sure that I don't miss the delicate mushroom tissue and furthermore to reveal the mushroom root as less as achievable to be able to sustain the spores for the future.

There are several principles I follow:

- If I am picking wild mushrooms I ensure that I really don't harvest pretty much all edible mushrooms from the actual spot where I've discovered them. I leave behind (tend not to even contact!) around 10% of edible mushrooms to develop further so that those species are conserved in the nature.

- I collect young edible mushrooms ( around 7-9 cm in height). Older mushrooms tend to be not really as solid and tight as they should be for transportation; they aren't as yummy as young ones and tend not to fit for storage.

- If I see that cut mushroom is consumed by earthworms and there is nothing I may utilize for cooking, I toss around mushroom cap pieces in the spot to ensure that spores distribute on a greater spot ("Fungi recreate via spores, that are often created on specialized structures or in fruiting bodies, such as the head of a mushroom.")

- I do not pick mushrooms nearby to streets and industrial areas as wild mushrooms soak up metals from the environment and may get toxic.

- I really don't pick wild mushrooms which I do not know or cannot Completely recognize. Every time I am not sure I carry only one mushroom of unidentified type and recognize it at home working with different sources.

When I am home I take care of cleaning, cooking and preservation of mushrooms on the actual same day. It often can take a lot of energy however it must be done because freshly harvested mushrooms can not stay fresh over night (not really in cold water in the refrigerator!). And that is one further legitimate reason why I stand up very early for mushroom hunting.