How to Start Foraging for Mushrooms

The Beet: A Podcast For Plant Lovers

Epic Gardening

Home & Garden, Education, Leisure, How To

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Are you yearning to get into mushroom forging? First things first, get up and get into nature. Dr. Gordon Walker shares his tips, tricks and tools for starting your mushroom foraging journey. Connect With Dr. Gordon Walker: Dr. Gordon Walker is originally from Cambridge, MA but came to California to attend UC Santa Cruz, where he got a B.S. in Biochemistry and spent his free time sailing, scuba diving, and home brewing. Inspired to study fermentation, Gordon came to UC Davis and joined Dr. Linda Bisson's laboratory to focus on the biochemistry, genetics, and ecology of yeast in wine. After graduating with his Ph.D. in 2016, Gordon worked two harvests at Opus One helping to pioneer the use of novel fermentation control technology. He then returned to UC Davis to do post-doctorate work with Dr. Ron Runnebaum focused on how site specificity and elemental composition can affect fermentation behavior. Since he was a kid, Gordon has harbored a deep fascination with all things fungi; inspired by puffballs, chicken of the woods, truffles, and the microbial mishmash that produces sour beers. While living in New Zealand after finishing his PhD, Gordon took on the new hobby of mushroom foraging and started documenting his finds on Instagram. Through his social media (@FascinatedByFungi) he has reached millions around the globe, sharing the amazing diversity of colors, form, and function in the fungi kingdom. He is a renowned science communicator, published academic author, and award-winning speaker. His goal is to teach the world about mushrooms; inspiring others to take an active role in protecting nature and building a more sustainable future. Instagram Facebook YouTube TikTok Pinterest Patreon Website Buy Birdies Garden Beds Use code EPICPODCAST for 5% off your first order of Birdies metal raised garden beds, the best metal raised beds in the world. They last 5-10x longer than wooden beds, come in multiple heights and dimensions, and look absolutely amazing. Click here to shop Birdies Garden Beds Buy My Book My book, Field Guide to Urban Gardening, is a beginners guide to growing food in small spaces, covering 6 different methods and offering rock-solid fundamental gardening knowledge: Order on Amazon Order a signed copy Follow Epic Gardening YouTube Instagram Pinterest Facebook Facebook Group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you want to go mushroom foraging, well, you're not alone because I've literally never
0:15.7	done it my life, even though it sounds like the most fun activity of all time.
0:19.3	I've done some foraging for like, you know, wild fruit and San Diego area, but we do have
0:24.2	Dr. Gordon Walker on the show.
0:26.8	This is something that I've actually consumed a lot of your content, Gordon, on going out,
0:31.8	finding stuff, explaining what it is, if I became captivated by it.
0:35.5	So, you know, if I want to get into this, I really honestly don't know where to begin.
0:40.7	Well, a great place to begin is to just go out for hikes and start looking at stuff.
0:46.5	I for years was like, I really wanted to go mushroom foraging and I felt like I needed
0:50.0	someone to kind of leave me.
0:51.2	I think a lot of people want a guide, they want a guru, they want someone to, you know,
0:54.8	point to things and say, you can eat that, you can't eat that.
0:57.6	The truth is, even if you have an expert, there's going to be a period of time where there's
1:02.2	a lot of ambiguity and there's sort of an uncomfortable space where you don't know
1:05.7	what things are.
1:06.9	And that's totally okay because we live in a world now where we have technology and there's
1:11.2	a great app.
1:12.2	This is the number one thing I recommend to people is an app called iNaturalist and you
1:16.3	can take a picture of literally any living thing, upload it to the app and it'll spit
1:20.9	back with its free algorithm, what it thinks it is.
1:24.1	So it works incredibly well for most plants, insects, birds.
1:28.1	It does okay with mushrooms because part of it is you have to take a good photo of a mushroom
	...

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