Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

The polytunnel continues to provide us with a regular harvest of goodies from peas to carrots, from courgettes to squash, (see 3rd October for a full list) but we are also getting a huge amount of fungi starting to appear and as we are not 100% sure what sorts they are, we are being VERY careful not to accidentally pick any along with our regular veg!! There are tens of thousands of different types of fungi in the world, some can be eaten (such as the field mushrooms that grew in the polytunnel in the late summer, see 27th August) but a great many (approximately 20%) of fungi are poisonous. Poisonous describes a substance that if eaten (or inhaled or even touched) can cause serious harm to the body and/or its organs resulting in illness or even death. The general rule with all fungi is that if you are not 100% sure what it is, DO NOT eat it.
There are three different types of fungi (and these are from the mushroom family we think) growing in our polytunnel at the moment (see the photos below). The slugs are enjoying eating them but we are being cautious, or safe, as we are not altogether sure if they are edible. Fungi often grow on rotting wood and sadly we think our asparagus crowns may have died and are rotting, as the first and second photos are of mushrooms in our asparagus bed. What might lead us to think this? Well, the ferns which normally grow to the top of the polytunnel in the autumn have just not appeared this year. We will have to wait until the spring to be sure or we may even dig down to see what is happening.
In the meantime, we will let the fungi carry on growing, after all if the slugs are eating them, they may then not eat our greens... possibly!!!