If Only These Were Edible...

After it rained this week, I noticed these two mushrooms growing in the yard.  They literally grew overnight and they are giant.  I put my spade next to it so you can see how giant it is!  Wild mushrooms grow so fast!  They seem to pop up overnight.  Too bad they are not edible.  They look gorgeous enough to eat.  Though I dare not to.  I don't know anything about identifying wild mushrooms but I do know that unless you can expertly identify them, they should not be eaten since most are poisonous. 

Then the next day, the cap expanded out making the mushrooms even larger.

This photo really doesn't do it justice.  It is so humongous.

Here is my boot next to it, just so you can get an idea of how large it is.  Being that it potentially is poisonous, does anyone know, can you put these into the compost??  Does that affect the compost at all?

Seeing these giant mushrooms form in my backyard makes me really want to get a kit and grow my own edible ones.  Maybe a Portabella mushroom kit like Allison uses in The Life of a Novice.  It grew a big box of mushrooms, so amazing!!  Or try this Oyster mushroom kit that Fern wrote about on Life on the Balcony. I'm also fascinated with getting spores and innoculating a log like how RuralRose grows Maitake mushrooms on Life Through the Cracks. AGWH grows Shitakes on logs on Grow Your Own Food.  I would love to try to innoculate a log and set it and forget it.  Since I can be a bit of a lazy gardener, this would be ideal!  The innoculated logs will continue to grow and regrow the mushrooms,  I love perennials so this would be totally sustainable and awesome.  Do you grow mushrooms?  Do you use a kit?  Or do you buy plugs and innoculate a log?

Mushrooms

I've been seeing some interesting looking mushrooms growing near our garden. It's funny, they seem to grow like overnight. Is that possible? This one white button mushroom was in the path of where I drag my garden hose. So I would have seen it growing. However, it seemed that literally it just popped up out of no where. And it's no small mushroom. This thing is enormous. I put my garden trowel next to it so you can see the size in comparison.

I plucked it out of the ground, because I have my extended family's children who visit frequently, the last thing I want is for one of the kids to think it's edible. Speaking of, I love love love eating mushrooms and everytime I see a nice mushroom, I always think, wow, I wish I could eat it. I don't dare because I don't know the difference between an edible and a poisonous mushroom. Doesn't it look beautiful though?

This mushroom was growing behind our picket fence behind the garden. It looks similar to a portabello I thought. It was brown and really flat.

My sister sent me this photo. Its a giant mushroom! She was visiting our niece and our brother-in-laws' parents and they had this ginormous mushroom growing in their front yard in Connecticut. Check out my niece's blue clog and her grandpa's loafer next to the mushroom. This will give you an idea of how big this 'shroom is. I googled "giant mushroom" and I couldn't find the name of this fungus. Does anyone know what type of mushroom it is? It's really funky, I wonder if it's edible.