Puffballs from Mars

My youngest isn't convinced about
this Giant Puffball's tastiness

What a surprise!  A couple of weeks ago (beginning of October) after many days of rain, rain and more rain, strange luminous round things  were found lurking in my woods.  Giant Puffball Mushrooms from Mars!  (At least that's what they looked like...alien beings.)

Turns out Giant Puffballs are found all over southeastern Wisconsin and they are edible!  Well, they are edible when they are firm and solidly white on the inside.  If they are green or yellow on the inside, they are no longer edible.

My parents were visiting at the time and my father came in from the yard all excited, with a white mushroom the size of a volleyball in his arms.  It was the biggest puffball mushroom I had ever seen (turns out that it actually wasn't all that big compared to some of them) and I watched with skepticism as my dad proceeded to slice it up and fry it with some butter in the pan.

Before he was able to eat it, I quickly checked on the 'net to verify his claim that giant puffballs really were edible.  "Dead Dad" wasn't the souvenir I wanted from their weekend visit.  (We've already had the "Mangled Dad Taken To Emergency Room" visit.)

Looks like tofu...

It had the consistency of tofu and a very mild flavor.  We all liked it except my husband.  He ate some of the raw mushroom by mistake and didn't like it.  He didn't care much for the cooked version either.  He's a Morel man through-and-through, I guess.

Anyhow, having another edible mushroom on the property was exciting for all of us.  A nice surprise.

Also a surprise this Fall were some perennials in the yard.  I never noticed this in catalogue descriptions but my "Fireworks" goldenrod turned out to be fragrant.  Not smack-you-upside-the-head fragrant like a lilac, but scented enough that my whole prairie patch smelled faintly like vanilla.  All sorts of insects swarmed its blossoms while it bloomed.  In fact, I'm going to have to move it next spring because it got so tall that you had to move its flowerheads out of the way when walking on the path near it.  A scary proposition when the flowerheads are covered with various bees.

Snakewort: also a woodland native
but this particular plant is a cultivar

It's late October now and my Snakeroot is still in full bloom.  In my shade garden, it's a really late bloomer and I love it's small, fuzzy white flowers.  That's another plant that was literally covered with insects.  I guess they love the flowers too.

My blue-stem goldenrods bloomed very nicely; I tried to bring some into the house for a vase but they didn't work very well.  Better for vase-work were my marigolds and zinnias.  They've been looking amazing this fall.  My nasturtiums are just gorgeous right now too.  Their variegated foliage and yellow, orange and red flowers look wonderful surrounded by falling leaves.

Yummy and beautiful!  What more can you ask for?

I used to grow nasturtiums in Pardeeville, several varieties in fact.  Those flowers tended to have a peppery taste.  The ones I grew this year have a distinct radish-y taste.  They sure look pretty in a salad but, Wow!  Strong!  Unfortunately, these are from seed leftover from years ago and unlabeled so I don't know the variety.  "Alaska" maybe?

Still going strong in the back yard are my maidenhair and robust male ferns, my sweet woodruff (still putting up new leaves, despite some COLD weather) and, strangely, my variegated solomon's seal.  The native solomon's seal are looking ratty and going dormant.  I wonder if it's because the natives set fruit and the variegated kind didn't?

After a week's plus worth of rain, the deer came through and cleared out my hosta, lady's mantle and wild geraniums.  They must have been hungry because they also nibbled my pulmonarias, which surprised me.

Another nasty surprise was how bad my spruces were affected by rhizosphera this year.  I had read somewhere that it would be a bad year for foliar disease due to the cold, rainy spring we had but I was totally unprepared for how much needle loss there was.  I had the kids sweep up as many needles as they could and I limbed up many of the spruces to increase air flow.  Once winter comes, I'll lay down a thick layer of mulch; hopefully that'll help.  I know that the spruces need to go (the wrong trees planted the wrong way in the wrong spot) but so many birds and critters depend on them!

Blue Stem Goldenrod: a woodland native

The same goes for that cedar in my front yard;  the cedar waxwings, robins and yellow-rumped warblers are on the move now and they swarm that tree every year.

The front yard would look better if I took it down but I don't have the heart to do so.  Even though my front walk is covered in little frosty blue berries that stain the cement green.  Even though I have to cover my windows on the outside with papers to keep those stupid waxwings from hitting the glass.

All the other birds can see the window clings that are normally present on our windows (we use the black hawk clings and the clear, frosted clings) but the waxwings obviously don't get it.  They try to fly past them; they do it to the papers too.  We look like a family of pyschos with our windows covered up like that.  I need a better idea; if you have a suggestion I'm all ears...of course, looking like psychos isn't a bad thing with Halloween coming 'round the corner.  Maybe I'll have the kids cut the papers into the shapes of ghosts or something.  Call it my holiday decorating effort!

One of the critters that loves our spruce trees
(uh, that's not a spruce tree in the picture though)

Anyhow, hope you are all done getting ready for winter.  I haven't even planted my fall bulbs yet.  Actually, I haven't even purchased my fall bulbs yet.  Maybe this week...