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Field of Dreams - Liberty Caps

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S

Swarupa

Rising Star
Senior Member
OG Pioneer
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Last year was my first picking liberty caps and i came to be completely enamoured with it, after constantly scouting for new patches and walking many miles this season i finally stumbled upon that elusive field of dreams! I never knew places like this even existed, the field is quite small yet packed with thousands upon thousands of liberty caps of all shapes and sizes.

Here's some of the nicest pics i snapped this season :)

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A friend of mine who lives out in the country said he picked enough liberty caps to last a year or more. The field he found even looks like a mushroom on Google Earth. Good year for picking mushrooms in the UK!
 
There was a ridiculous amount in this field, after drying and weighing i figured out i could take a strong dose once a month for over a decade :)

I'm looking forward to going back on a dry day as its so much easier to spot them & get good pictures.
 
OMG, that's nuts! I've been searching like mad going from place to place by bike for two or three weeks now and I Found 20 pieces so far on one spot. Seeing this makes me go insane, you lucky bastard!
I dont know if you ever heard of storing them in honey, it's a good method so i've heard.

Can you tell a bit about the area, surrounding and type of soil? I'm not asking you to tell where your spot is. But some general information might help in locating a good spot over here.
Is it near water? Is it in a forest or in a open area? That kind of stuff...
For instance ,i've heard and also experienced that fields surrounded by trees/forest seem to be good places to find this mushroom.

One funny thought came up, since there are so many concentrated in such a small area, maybe someone figured out how to guerilla grow them and this was his or hers secret spot ;)

Anyway have fun with your Sh..load!

S.
 
One cautious sidenote: are we all making sure that these patches can survive and keep having a sustainable harvest each year?

Overpicking might kill something that we should nourish so we better be careful.


Kind regards,

The Traveler
 
Chronic

Thank you for sharing these beautiful photographs...


The Traveler said:
One cautious sidenote: are we all making sure that these patches can survive and keep having a sustainable harvest each year?

Overpicking might kill something that we should nourish so we better be careful.


Kind regards,

The Traveler
Click to expand...

Traveler

Indeed mindfulness and sustainability are of the greatest importance when regarding matters of this nature, I truly couldn't agree with you more good Sir.


Much Peace and Respect
 
Sebastian said:
Can you tell a bit about the area, surrounding and type of soil? I'm not asking you to tell where your spot is. But some general information might help in locating a good spot over here.
Is it near water? Is it in a forest or in a open area? That kind of stuff...
For instance ,i've heard and also experienced that fields surrounded by trees/forest seem to be good places to find this
Click to expand...

Fields that are lightly grazed by animals on a bit of a slope usually work for me. Mushrooms do grow everywhere I have seen a few in my local rec on the football pitch and in school feilds. Never noticed any correlation to woodland.

Soil condition does make a difference and just like a good woman you want it soft and moist (but not waterlogged). These conditions have to be right prior to mushroom season as the mycelium (from which the mushrooms fruit) has to build up energy to grow the shrooms.

This year I took ten or so shrooms pulled the caps apart and spread them around my lawn I want to see if I can spawn it.
 
This has got me syked for tomorrow, I've got the day off and there is a break in the weather,

god bless you mushroom season.
 
Sebastian said:
OMG, that's nuts! I've been searching like mad going from place to place by bike for two or three weeks now and I Found 20 pieces so far on one spot. Seeing this makes me go insane, you lucky bastard!
I dont know if you ever heard of storing them in honey, it's a good method so i've heard.

Can you tell a bit about the area, surrounding and type of soil? I'm not asking you to tell where your spot is. But some general information might help in locating a good spot over here.
Is it near water? Is it in a forest or in a open area? That kind of stuff...
For instance ,i've heard and also experienced that fields surrounded by trees/forest seem to be good places to find this mushroom.

One funny thought came up, since there are so many concentrated in such a small area, maybe someone figured out how to guerilla grow them and this was his or hers secret spot ;)

Anyway have fun with your Sh..load!

S.
Click to expand...

This field goes against most of what i was taught really, it's in an area that has been ploughed in the past, flat surface at low altitude, and not by any rivers or streams, the only thing it has in common with places usually recommended is that it is a grazing field.

I'm so grateful to have found a spot like this, i get the feeling that this is a once in a lifetime thing, i've been pretty obsessed with picking them since i caught the bug last year on my first season and have since put a lot of mileage in, i've found a few decent patches here & there but nothing quite like this.
 
There isn't anything remarkable about your field Chronic. They grew lush and dense like that all over the country. Being able to squat and pick thirty or fourty shrooms without having to move is normal. Places like that are not hard to find and a cycle ride and walk into the countryside is pleasant enough reward, even if you come back empty. I like to keep such places really private and wont tell a single sole of their location. I know three or four places within a cycle ride of a similar bountiful lushness, that nobody else in the world knows of.


As for conditions, I have never been able to work it out. I've been picking for thirty years, more than and in that time, I've heard all sorts of pet theories from people who think they know, what shrooms do and don't like. Wether it be warm summers, wet springs, sheep, cows, horses, cultivated gardens or wild heath land. To me, it's all a load of bollocks. They're quite simple things who like grass and the regular British climate seems to do them proud. Bowling greens, cultivated lawns and cricket pitches are just as good a place to find them, as pasture, horse padocks and sheep grazed hill tops. Some years a solidly reliable field, produce very little, while ones round about don't seem to be affected. I have never seen or recognised a pattern to it and just accept it as part of the mecurial nature of the thing.
 
Magic Clown perhaps you are more blessed in your hunting endeavours than many others or maybe just that you've been picking a few more seasons so have more experience, this season i'd covered at least 100 miles of land on foot and found a dozen here, a few hundred or so there, but mostly nothing... although as you say i love getting out in nature so im always happy even if empty handed.

I do hope that what you say is true and these kind of fields are commonplace throughout the country so that plenty of people can enjoy them, i enjoy the thrill of finding new spots and generally wouldn't rely on any one place fruiting every season.
 
There is absolutely no reason to doubt that they wont fruit there again next year. You hovered up every single one that you saw but by the time you see them, the spores have flown and it has re-seeded itself. It is very obviously a strong and healthy organism that lives in the soil, so it will easily be able to withstand your picking for a year or five.

The way I do it, the way I think of it and the way I hope you do it is. Now you found that field, respect it. Next year, you know it is there so don't go back to it. You now know how to find them, so go out and look for another. Give it time to recover and build up your own personal data bank or resevoir of picking spots. Believe me, there is absolutely nothing remarkable about that field.

Jealously guard your finds, don't tell a single sole the locations. Most people are too lazy or too stupid to think for themselves. When word gets out about a place human nature being what it is, you soon end up with cars full of people turning up.
 
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