Morel Mushroom Season is Here

It’s the time of year when the first morel mushrooms start popping up through the ground.  Every year, when the very short morel-hunting season is over, I run across ads for kits that enable you to grow morels in your back yard.  Every year, because I’m hungry for more morels than we were able to harvest, I’m tempted to send for one of those kits.

I have always resisted because the ads seem cheesy and too good to be true.  They remind me of those old ads for Sea Monkeys or X-Ray glasses (okay, I bought a pair of those, and no, they didn’t work) that I’d find in the back of my comic books when I was a kid.

I don’t know anyone who has purchased one of those kits and have been successful.  If you are out there, I’d love to hear from you.  I did, however, run across a little blurb at Mother Earth News that actually makes sense and gives me a little bit of hope.  The following is a snippet:

“Submerge a batch of morels in a pan of water with a plate on top and place the pan in the refrigerator. After a few hours, take the pan to your back yard (or other "secret spot") and pour the water around a tree. The idea is that the soaking water now contains tiny morel spores. Twice after having done this, I had yellow morels grow in my suburban yard, miles from the woods.”

      “Letters,” Mother Earth News, June/July 2003 issue

I don’t quite understand the “yellow” morels, but maybe that’s the color of morels in Indiana, where the writer is from.  Perhaps he lives in a suburb of Gary.  I think I’ll stick with the grey and brown one’s here in Wisconsin.

I’ll be trying this technique this year.  I normally soak my morels in saltwater overnight to kill the bugs.  I don't know what saltwater might do to spores so I've decided to soak them in water first, drain the water in a good spot, and then re-soak in saltwater for a few more hours.  Unfortunately it will be a year before I can report on the results.