Mushrooms are a special gift of nature! They are tasty and are used by chefs in a wide variety of dishes. And what a pleasure it is to pick mushrooms: a forest filled with the aromas of herbs and foliage, the chirping of birds and the delight of mushroom finds! And no mushrooms from a store can compare with the fragrant mushrooms from the forest found in person. How to pick mushrooms and when to pick mushrooms. The answers to these questions will be given by the mushroom calendar or mushroom calendar.
Mushroom picking- is not as simple a matter as it might seem at first glance. There is an optimal time to pick mushrooms different types. And of course you need appropriate weather conditions. The mushroom calendar will help you choose the time to go for mushroom gifts of nature. Experienced mushroom pickers, of course, can do without it, but beginners will find the mushroom calendar very useful.
Mushroom calendar
A novice mushroom picker should definitely know that the mushroom year begins in April and ends in the second half of October. Please note that each mushroom grows at a certain time, and not all the time. Therefore, if you are specifically targeting honey mushrooms or russula, then first you need to look at the mushroom calendar and check the months when they grow.
- Mushroom calendar for April
April - The most difficult month for mushrooms, the mushroom calendar records. At such times there are often frosts, so not all mushrooms are able to survive frost, snow and cold. Only the most resilient survive. Mushrooms appear around mid-April. You can find morels in the thick of the forest, right where there is still snow. They grow in open areas that receive the most sunlight. But oak and pine forests will definitely delight you with stitches and cinder omphalias.
- Mushroom calendar for May
May also does not particularly please mushroom pickers with the abundance of its gifts, according to the mushroom calendar. This is the month when mushrooms are just preparing for their summer and bountiful season. But if you try hard enough, you can find morel caps and chunky stitches deep in the forest. The end of May will please mushroom pickers more, since during this period there is a high probability of finding boletus and chanterelles. Of course, the bulk of this type of mushroom will appear a little later, but if you are so impatient, then you have the opportunity to find such pioneer mushrooms.
- Mushroom calendar for June
- Mushroom calendar for July
- Mushroom calendar for August
- Mushroom calendar for September, October
More details about the mushroom growth schedule can be found in the Mushroom Calendar below. Every month is rich in mushrooms. Simply, a special time is allocated for each mushroom. Therefore, if you have any preferences, then it is best for you to navigate the mushroom picker’s calendar this way.
Mushroom calendar for June July August spring and autumn
| What mushrooms to collect |
When to pick mushrooms |
||||||
| mushrooms in April | mushrooms in May | mushrooms in June | mushrooms in July | mushrooms in August | mushrooms in September | mushrooms in October | |
| Morels | + | + | + | ||||
| Stitches | + | + | + | ||||
| May mushroom | + | + | |||||
| Oyster mushroom | + | + | + | + | + | + | |
| Meadow honey fungus | + | + | + | + | |||
| boletus | + | + | + | + | |||
| Oiler grainy | + | + | + | ||||
| Summer honey fungus | + | + | + | + | + | ||
| The fox is real | + | + | + | ||||
| Porcini | + | + | + | + | + | ||
| Boletus | + | + | + | + | + | ||
| Pluteus deer | + | + | + | + | + | ||
| Spiky raincoat | + | + | + | + | + | + | |
| Common champignon | + | + | + | + | |||
| Field champignon | + | + | |||||
| Valuy | + | + | + | ||||
| Funnel talker | + | + | + | ||||
| White umbrella mushroom | + | + | + | ||||
| Variegated umbrella mushroom | + | + | + | + | |||
| Real milk mushroom | + | + | |||||
| Poddubovik | + | + | + | ||||
| Ivyshen | + | + | + | ||||
| Loader white | + | + | |||||
| Loader black | + | + | |||||
| Fat pig | + | + | |||||
|
Russula yellow, food, etc. |
+ | + | + | + | + | ||
| Green moss | + | + | + | + | + | ||
| Yellow hedgehog | + | + | |||||
| Ringed cap | + | + | + | ||||
| Larch oiler | + | + | + | ||||
| Volnushka pink | + | + | + | ||||
| Black breast | + | + | + | + | |||
| Spruce green camelina | + | + | + | ||||
| Pine mushroom | + | + | + | ||||
| Gray talker | + | + | |||||
| Late oiler | + | + | |||||
| Winter mushroom | + | + | |||||
| Loader black and white | + | + | |||||
| Polish mushroom | + | ||||||
| Autumn oyster mushroom | + | ||||||
| Gray row | + | ||||||
| Autumn stitch | + | + | |||||
| Autumn honey fungus | + | + | |||||
| Row purple | + | + | |||||
| Greenfinch | + | + | + | ||||
| Hygrophor brown | + | + | |||||
Now you know when to pick mushrooms. Hurry - the end of June is a great time to collect young mushrooms suitable for delicious dishes. While you can still treat yourself to delicious mushroom food, feel free to pick mushrooms for pickles and pickling for the remaining two summer months! And for a snack interesting information about mushrooms and advice for mushroom pickers.
Lifespan of mushrooms
Mushrooms grow quickly, increasing by approximately 1-2 cm per day. The mushroom acquires an average size in 3-6 days. The lifespan of honey mushroom, chanterelle, and boletus is 10 days. Live up to 14 days White mushroom and boletus, up to 40 - champignon. With the maturation of spores, the number of which amounts to tens of millions, the mushrooms age and often rot. Mushrooms are tasty and nutritious. If you follow some rules, the mushroom season will bring you only joy:- The first sign of a clean area in which to collect mushrooms is the abundance of fly agaric mushrooms.
- If only russula grow at the edge of the forest, it is better to avoid it - most likely, the soil is contaminated.
- 90% of mushrooms grow along the edges, clearings and young plantings, so there is no point in climbing into the thickets at the risk of not finding your way home.
- Mushrooms grow from 1 day to 3 days. Optimal conditions: 10-20 degrees Celsius, for lamellar and noble ones - from 5 to 15 degrees above zero. Air humidity is 80-90%, rain and heavy dew are desirable.
- Only young mushrooms whose caps are not fully opened or partially opened are suitable for food. Overripe mushrooms with a cap open like an umbrella have no nutritional value. It is better to hang such a mushroom on a branch - let the spores spread throughout the area. But if the cap is curved like a dome, it means that the mushroom has already released spores and a poison similar to that of a corpse is formed in it. It is dangerous and is the main cause of poisoning.
Previously on the topic of Mushrooms:
One of the most famous mushroom experts in Russia, Mikhail Vishnevsky, came to the Komsomolskaya Pravda radio to tell us what to expect from the mushroom season in 2017 in Moscow and the Moscow region [radio broadcast]
The founder of the “Mushroom Place” store, candidate of biological sciences, mycologist and author of books about mushrooms in Russia, Mikhail Vishnevsky, in the editorial office of Komsomolskaya Pravda. Photo: Ivan MAKEEV
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“SOMETHING SCARY IS HAPPENING UNDERGROUND”
- Nowadays there are offensively few mushrooms in the forests...
This year the weather situation is unique. In May and June it was almost winter. And as a result, in July, mushrooms of various types began to grow at the same time - I don’t remember this!.. There were also latecomers spring mushrooms- morels and lines, and classic summer ones like boletus, and even the first autumn ones like honey mushrooms, boletus, talkers, rows - apparently, they did not understand what was happening with the weather and assumed that autumn had already begun...
Where to pick mushrooms in the Moscow region in 2017
But all of them did not grow en masse or abundantly. Alas, the grass is growing better this year. In fact, many people, looking at how healthy and abundantly the grass grows, rejoice, thinking that the mushrooms will follow suit. So, nothing like that! Mushrooms and grass are fierce competitors who cannot stand each other.
- The spring was cold, but now it’s warm and it rains periodically. Is not it perfect weather for mushrooms?
Yes and no. In fact, the mycelium is now in full swing underground: what’s happening there is simply terrible, it’s rushing in all directions, spreading its threads, and it’s feeling very good! That's just fruiting bodies- what we collect in the forest - are not formed. This requires a sharp change in conditions: either a sharp warming or a sharp cooling, and at the same time a decrease in humidity. This will cause tiny fruiting bodies to form on the mycelium. And if this sudden climate change lasts at least a few days - two, three, or better yet five - then in two weeks the mushrooms will develop to the right size, and we will get a more or less clear harvest. But so far there have been no conditions for this. And the mycelium released one or two mushrooms instead of the fifteen or twenty we wanted...
Still, I hope that around the first ten days of September we will see mushrooms in the forest. But there will not be as many of them as last year, which, of course, was very successful.
HOW CHAMPIGNONS ESCAPE FROM GREENHOUSES
- What mushrooms now grow in cities?
Classic urban mushrooms that always grow are a variety of champignons and dung beetles. Their advantage is that they do not require wood. Most mushrooms, be it porcini, camelina or butterfly, are mycorrhizal; they necessarily enter into symbiosis, some with oak, some with birch, some with some other tree. But champignons and dung beetles have enough moderately moist nutritious soil - they are ready to climb even on the lawn, or even break out from under the asphalt... That is why champignons can be artificially cultivated. And many city champignons literally escaped from the greenhouses where they were grown: someone threw peelings or spoiled mushrooms, unsuitable for sale, onto the street - but they took root.
Another group edible mushrooms– these are those that are brought into the city along with seedlings and lawn soil. These can be all sorts of interesting rows and talkers. Along with tree seedlings, russulas and milkweeds are brought, some kind of trumpet, or even saffron milk cap, can easily grow near the house!
But we must keep in mind that mushrooms tend to absorb all sorts of nasty things. All mushroom pickers know that near highways - and in cities there are a lot of cars - it’s definitely not worth collecting them.
- And if you take Moscow forested areas, like Losiny Ostrov or Bitsevsky Park?
It's an interesting situation with them. For many decades, noble mushrooms - white mushrooms, aspen mushrooms, boletus mushrooms, chanterelle mushrooms - completely disappeared from Moscow. That is, they hid: the mycelium existed, but stopped bearing fruit. But apparently something has changed now environmental situation, or maybe mushrooms have adapted to the urban environment... After all, we now have starlings wintering in the city, and rooks that do not fly to warmer climes - this never happened before. So the white ones with chanterelles, apparently, understood something for themselves, and are now bearing fruit again within the city limits.
This year, Russian white truffles suddenly began to be found right in Moscow. I myself found one in Petrovsky Park, not far from the KP editorial office.
It happens that a mushroom that was considered rare suddenly gives a powerful surge in numbers. For example, last year this happened with the purple cobweb, listed in the Red Book. A very beautiful, luxurious mushroom, found infrequently - and suddenly it simply covered the entire European part of the country, people carried it out of the forest with baskets. This happens once every 10-20 years with almost every type of mushroom. And in the generally lean year of 2017, this happened with Russian white truffles (they are also called Troitsky or Posad truffles). A lot of them. Moreover, they began to grow earlier than expected - usually the season begins at the end of August, but here they appeared in mid-July... This will be the year of truffles. Well, and also chanterelles, which are so unpretentious that they almost don’t care when they grow.
In principle, truffles have been growing on the territory of present-day Moscow for a very long time, many millennia. A hundred years ago they were quietly collected in the city. They are not so difficult to find - in about half the cases they tend to protrude to the surface, partially, or even almost entirely... Just keep in mind that the Russian white truffle- is not the same as the delicacy Piedmontese or Perigord: it even belongs to a different genus of mushrooms, although in Russian it has the same name and is very similar in appearance. European ones cost several thousand euros per kilogram and are valued for their strong aroma, like a refined seasoning. And our truffle is simply fried, like porcini mushrooms or chanterelles, and its red price is two to three thousand rubles per kilogram. But you can surprise your guests by saying, “I fried turkey with truffles!”
"MOSCOW REGION - IN THE GASP BETWEEN MUSHROOM PLACES"
There are also pig houses that people rush to when there are not very many mushrooms. They look quite presentable; they were previously actively consumed as food. And now they are considered poisonous...
More precisely, deadly. The thin pig is not poisonous in the strict sense of the word, you cannot be poisoned by it, but it can cause severe allergic reaction, in which the body begins to destroy its own blood cells. And then - anemia, liver or kidney failure, and death... Then the neighbors say: “Grandma died of the liver!” - and no one connects her illness with the fact that she ate pork. Scientists generally figured this out relatively recently. It’s interesting that one person can eat pork all his life, while another will die after the third serving - it’s all individual. The risk group primarily includes those who have problems with the immune system, ranging from AIDS to any allergies. But you can’t eat pigs for others either - you shouldn’t play this Russian roulette.
- A question that has been the subject of controversy for many years: is it better to cut mushrooms or twist them?
This is a war of sharp ends and blunt ends, as in Gulliver's Travels. The egg doesn't care which side you break it with a spoon. Once upon a time, the problem did not exist at all: porcini mushrooms were torn out of the soil, and milk mushrooms were broken because they have a fragile stem. Mushroom pickers picked up knives when mass procurement of canned mushrooms began, that is, in the 20s - 30s of the 20th century: with a knife, baskets are filled much faster... In general, the question itself appeared around 1923: a certain comrade Regel, who was engaged in growing champignons, published a brochure on how to properly collect them in greenhouses. There they really cannot be torn out of the soil - the substrate layer is disturbed, and this harms the development of the mycelium. But you can’t cut it off, because the stem remains, which fungus gnats begin to attack. The only option is to carefully unscrew it and fill the hole with soil. And this was picked up by other authors and extended to ordinary Forest mushrooms... Although the dispute is ridiculous - in the forest this has no effect on the mycelium.
By the way, there is an opinion that buying champignons grown in special conditions- it’s more “civilized” than picking mushrooms in the forest. Allegedly, champignons from greenhouses are more environmentally friendly and safe.
It is a myth! Yes, some people believe that the environment in nature is unfavorable, some kind of acid rain comes from the sky, and mushrooms absorb all this nasty stuff. Maybe it’s the “sterile” champignon plant. But in fact, in greenhouses, mushrooms are grown on the same manure, soil or straw that was collected somewhere in the fields! And mushrooms are almost one hundred percent composed of what they grew on. So this is all such commercial blah-blah that you shouldn’t listen to - in terms of their composition, cultivated mushrooms are practically no different from their wild-growing counterparts.
- The classic question: where to go for mushrooms? Let's hope that they will appear this year...
The Moscow region, unfortunately, lies in a certain gap between two mushroom peaks. If you look to the south, in the Tula and Nizhny Novgorod regions everything is in order with mushrooms. And in the north there is also beauty: Vladimirskaya, Tverskaya, Novgorodskaya... And we are in some middle, where there is less of everything.
Still, there are two pleasant destinations in the Moscow region. Firstly, to the south, towards Kashira, where the forest-steppe begins - mushrooms really love such places. Secondly, to the west, towards Zvenigorod, where good climate, many deciduous and even broad-leaved forests. And to the east, where there are Meshchera, swamps, mosquitoes, it makes sense to go mainly for boletus. If you go north, then it’s better to get to Dubna or even to the Tver region.
In Russia, mushroom picking is almost a national species sports According to statistics, every third resident of our country goes out into the forest with a basket in the fall. But if before the revolution in Russia there were up to 40 kg of mushrooms per capita per year, today it is only 3 kg. Why?
Looking in the wrong place!
Mushrooms (especially those of high nutritional value - porcini mushrooms, boletus mushrooms, boletus mushrooms) are not so easy to find in the forest. A lucky few get a full basket of boletus; most come out of the forest with russulas and pigs.
— The main thing in “silent hunting” is to know mushroom places, says Vera Mokeeva, Candidate of Biological Sciences, Researcher Department of Mycology and Alcology, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University - Mushrooms reproduce using spores, which, when exposed to favorable conditions, form a mycelium. New mushrooms subsequently grow from it. Such myceliums persist in the soil for quite a long time, so experienced mushroom pickers remember the place where they once reaped a rich harvest, periodically visit there and do not tell anyone about the “place of mushroom power.”
How to find a mushroom place?
There is no point in looking for mushrooms in thick grass and forest thickets. They usually grow in clearings, sunny meadows and forest edges, in moist but not soggy soil. Some types of fungi - mycorrhiza-formers - are closely associated with the root system of certain tree species (boletus, boletus), others - xylotrophs - with living or dead wood (honey mushrooms, oyster mushrooms) - and the older the tree, the greater the likelihood of finding mycelium under or on it .
It is known that the mushroom yield is not constant. The fertility of mycelium depends on the weather. If the summer was hot and dry, there will be few mushrooms in the fall. A moderately warm and moderately rainy summer promises a rich mushroom harvest.
Take valuable ones
A mycelium is a sponge that absorbs all the nasty things from environment.
“In most edible mushrooms, the mycelium is located near the soil surface and absorbs large amounts of moisture from the environment,” explains Candidate of Pharmaceutical Sciences Igor Sokolsky. “If the soil is contaminated with water-soluble xenobiotics, they easily penetrate the mushrooms and can accumulate in quantities that render edible mushrooms inedible.”
Autumn mushrooms are the safest and healthiest. The mycelium “gives out” all the accumulated negativity with the first harvest, later autumn mushrooms you can safely collect. They are the safest. Exceptions are mushrooms collected along highways, railroad tracks, landfills, landfills, etc. Eating them is extremely dangerous.
Another important mushroom nuance is edibility. Unlike other products, mushrooms are conditionally edible. By the way, this term has taken root exclusively in our country. All over the world, sow mushrooms, volushki, russula, lacticaria, morels, milk mushrooms, rows (and other mushrooms that have a poisonous or acrid taste in their raw form) are considered inedible.
“The toxins of conditionally edible mushrooms are resistant to heat treatment (that is, neither frying nor boiling can neutralize them),” explains Elena Tereshina, Doctor of Biological Sciences, - you can eat them (if you really want to) only in a salted form and exclusively at a “young age” (that is, rotten wormy mushrooms - the overgrown ones should be left in the forest “bed”).
Mushrooms of the first and second nutritional value - porcini, boletus, boletus, saffron milk caps, chanterelles - are not only tasty, but also extremely nutritious. They are rich in vegetable protein (dishes made from them are recommended for fasting), carbohydrates and minerals.
Moderation and caution
Mushrooms are considered “heavy food”. Mushroom protein is enclosed in chiton shells, which are not affected by gastric juice, so their dietary fiber is practically not digested, through gastrointestinal tract pass through and impede the digestion process.
An abundance of mushrooms on the table is fraught with eating disorders and indigestion.
To get the maximum benefit from mushrooms, start processing them immediately after picking (the content of biologically active substances in freshly picked mushrooms is higher than in stale ones). Remember that young mushrooms are more nutritious and healthier than old ones, and the caps are more nutritious than the stems.
The most useful way to prepare mushrooms is drying. When drying, moisture is lost, but nutritional value rises. Mushrooms are best digested in crushed form - prepare mushroom powder by grinding dried mushrooms in a coffee grinder or mill.
Get treatment for your health
The medicinal properties of mushrooms are no less known than the recipes. Mushroom decoctions, tinctures and powders have been present in the arsenal of doctors since time immemorial. Chronicles indicate that Vladimir Monomakh was treated with a decoction of chaga for a tumor of the lower lip. Mushrooms were also used by personal healers Empress Catherine II And Alexandra Fedorovna. Even before the revolution, about 50 species of mushrooms were considered medicinal.
Nowadays, a whole direction has emerged - fungotherapy (mushroom treatment). It is based on a solid evidence base. Penicillin, which saved millions of lives, was isolated from molds. After this discovery, it became clear that many fungi have antibiotic activity. The antibiotic agaridoxin, which acts on many pathogens, was obtained from the meadow champignon. The antibiotics drosophyllin, nemotin, biformin, and polyporin were also obtained from fungi. More recent studies have shown that mushrooms can regulate blood pressure and reduce cholesterol and blood sugar.
The discovery of the antitumor effect of mushrooms was a real sensation. Scientists discovered this property in the last century, drawing attention to residents of several Japanese villages in which there was not a single case of cancer. It turned out that the basis of the diet of their inhabitants is mushrooms. Today, the antitumor effect of mushrooms is being actively studied, but what biological compounds of mushrooms have such an effect is not yet known for certain.
Supporters of fungotherapy believe that mushrooms can help with heart and lung diseases, boost immunity, and beneficial properties Almost every mushroom has it.
Raincoat is a hemostatic agent. Pieces of mushroom applied to the wound stop bleeding, prevent suppuration and help rapid healing.
Honey mushrooms are effective against E. coli and staphylococcus. Autumn honey mushrooms are used as a mild laxative. Morels help improve vision.
There are deer spittle in the forests, but this is of little consolation
This summer, with tropical downpours and St. Petersburg winds, is not at all conducive to seasonal entertainment in the Moscow region: swimming is cold, sunbathing is useless, mushroom picking is too early. According to the forestry committee of the Moscow region, this year's mushroom season will begin with a delay of 1.5 months - not in mid-July, but in early September. Rare chanterelles and boletus, which now delight the eyes of the most ardent followers of quiet hunting, are unlikely to be able to satisfy the demand of avid mushroom pickers and the appetite of sophisticated gourmets. There is practically nothing to dry, fry, pickle, boil, freeze and store for the winter, officials say.
Typically, the beginning of the mushroom season in the Moscow region occurs in the second decade of July, and the peak occurs in the second or third week of August. This is subject to have a nice summer. This year the summer is cold, the earth does not have time to warm up, so we expect the start of the mushroom season later, the forestry committee explained to MK.
Meanwhile, true mushroom pickers are in no hurry to complain about the “dead season.” According to expert Oleg Savelyev, from the very beginning of summer he returns from the forest with a full basket.
There really aren’t enough mushrooms for this time of year, but if you want, you can harvest a good harvest,” Savelyev told MK. - First there was a wave of morels, now there are summer honey mushrooms in the forests. There are deer spittle, a lot of chanterelles and in some places - boletus. There are about a hundred species of mushrooms in the Moscow region, and the forests are almost never empty. Personally, I collect mushrooms from April to November. Somehow, even on January 13, I remember, I picked a basket full of honey mushrooms. Amateur mushroom pickers, of course, will not fill their baskets to the top now, but the forestry committee’s postponement of the start of the mushroom season is, in my opinion, a hasty decision. So soon we will wait for the approval of the official opening and closing date. You don’t have to look far for an example: in Estonia, some time ago the day for the start of the hazelnut harvest was officially announced. But this is of no use. If you wish, you can go into the forest at any time and discover something there. Well, don’t forget that last decades The forests in the region were severely degraded. Urbanization has done its job, and now there are fewer mushrooms, not only because the weather is not suitable, but because the green region has been cleared and developed. But back in the early 20th century, near Zagorsk, bears used branches to fill their dens.
According to the general opinion of mushroom pickers, nature regularly presents tricky riddles to lovers of quiet hunting. No one can still explain how and why 2 years ago there was a real boom in the forests of the Moscow region yellow web spider. Until then, this mushroom was considered an extremely rare guest in these places, but now, out of the blue, it literally flooded the region. And then he disappeared again. Last year’s surprise was the massive appearance in July of autumn honey mushrooms, for which the time, to put it mildly, had not yet come. And yet they “looked out” all the time, and mushroom pickers never tired of saying: “Miracles!”
Explain all these phenomena alone weather conditions impossible, says Oleg Savelyev. Mycologist Ksenia Alekseeva agrees with him, calling wild mushrooms “unpredictable creatures”:
There are no warning signs for mushroom season. None scientific methods And folk signs They can’t tell in advance what will happen to the mushrooms this year. These microorganisms can unexpectedly produce massive fruit, or they can disappear for no reason at all. Therefore, I cannot explain the temporary absence of forest gifts only by the vagaries of the weather.
So questions from the series “How long will it take for noble mushrooms to appear?” automatically fall into the category of rhetorical. Meanwhile, people do not hesitate to collect “conditionally edible garbage.” And even within the city limits.
“In the green zone of Shcherbinka there are simply tons of champignons! And in the River Russula area there is darkness,” a resident of the Moscow region left his note on one of the mushroom furums.
“Near the house in the city I saw 2 boletus and syroega, but in the forest there was absolutely zero,” responded another network user from Pushchino.
“Now there are more ticks than white ones,” the third interlocutor sneered.