It was a bit of a toss up as to whether to categorise this posting as rural stuff or food and drink, but in the end I erred on the side of caution in case anyone takes this the wrong way.
As we head into a damp-ish September, the countryside around us is starting to produce things that can be consumed, and things that can't. The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is upon us here, and the hedgerows are bursting with things, some good, some not so good.
In the good category this year are hops, nuts (hazel and cob nuts, as the walnuts and chestnuts won't be right for another few weeks yet), blackberries (but hurry to get them before the birds, and before the start of October when the Devil gets them), a few wild medlars, apples, and the right sort of mushrooms.
In the bad category are wasps nests, bad mushrooms and giant red slugs.
Our wood can be brilliant for edible mushrooms, particularly penny bun and various sorts of bolete. Currently it seems to be a little to dry and a little too shaded to produce much other than death caps and other, more insignificant, non-edible mushrooms.
The curiosity of the crop so far this year is a grey capped bolete, which grows to a good size, and turns blue the instant you cut it or tear a piece off it. As far as we can tell it is a boletus radicans, which is one of the very few inedible boletes. Another bolete that does this is the boletus erythropus, which looks a bit scary as it is quite red in places (in French it is a bolet a pied rouge).
Rather than risk it, we are waiting for the best of the boletes to sprout in the One Acre Wood - the boletus edulis - which is well worth waiting for.
Below is a boletus radicans showing how blue it can look when cut. After the photo, it went straight on the compost heap.
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