06/12/2026
🍄 A Sign of Healthy Soil? 🍄
Wednesday evening, Jill and I headed up to the garden to help Alex and Gina get a few more things planted. Jill had picked up a variety of unusual pumpkin starts from Sharp Brook Farms, so we decided to plant them in an area where Alex had spread a mixture of pig manure and bedding.
After giving the area a good watering yesterday, we went back this morning and found something interesting — a huge flush of mushrooms had appeared almost overnight!
Now, these aren’t the edible kind (and as far as we know, not the magical kind either 😆), but mushrooms are often a sign that the soil is full of organic matter and that the underground fungal network is hard at work breaking things down and cycling nutrients.
My dad used to plant squash seeds right into old manure piles because they seemed to thrive there, and seeing all this fungal activity makes me think these pumpkins might have found a pretty good home.
Have you noticed mushrooms popping up in your garden after a good rain or watering?
Here’s to keeping real food simple, and sharing the journey with our community.
