Now that it's getting warmer, we're getting flushes of king stropharia mushrooms in the strawberry fields. The visible mushroom is actually the smallest part of the fungus - it emerges when the mycelium under the surface are running out of food. The mushroom fruit releases spawn, which float to a new location and hopefully start a whole new organism!
We add king stropharia spawn to every load of wood chips that comes on site, since king stropharia is particularly good at breaking down wood into gorgeous, fungal rich soil. So the appearance of mushrooms means that the chips we spread last fall are now feeding all the plants pumping out berries. I even spotted a huge stropharia (think a foot tall!) in one of the recently tilled fields that Paidea is taking over. I hate to see all the work I've done on the soil here set back by their actions, but at least the nutrients will be available for the plants they grow. If it didn't completely disrupt the soil food web (and wouldn't be prohibitively expensive) I would take the soil I've built with me. But I've done it once, now I can do it again faster and better.
