Compost Heaps & Mushrooms Don't Belong Together!

Goodness, but that was a close call.

Parents are the source of knowledge and pity the child who doesn't follow parental advice. Our household has recently had a mushroom abundance. Nothing wrong with that and in fact it is one of the tastiest meals ever. If it weren't for my parents giving us sage advice it might have been disastrous!

The salting of the mushrooms, which was luckily a tip from my Dad, saved us from numerous little worms and bugs. All well and good. The next day though, my Mum asked me where we had put the mushroom waste. You know, the little bits you cut from a raw mushroom as you clean it. A forest mushroom does have more to cut off than the perfectly shaped champignon from the supermarket.

" Bob threw everything onto our compost heap. "
" Oh no Biggi, that starts to stink like mad. I put them onto our compost heap once and we couldn't go near it for days. Just an awful stench. "

Even though our heap is out back, way back, it does seem awfully close to our neighbour and his posse. Only one thing to do.

I drove home and told Bob that "we" had to move it. It was just about to storm with the skies having turned a vicious green. Bob moved the odious odorous task forward to the morning. Well, luckily or rather cunningly I had to hang up a load of washing while he ventured out back. Equipped with a special basket and trowel. No gloves though! Bob being a guy, he had to show me his trophies or in this case the almost rotten mushroom peels. Good grief they ponged. Oh my gosh, how awful.

There was only one way Bob could dispose of them. He had to get them back into the forest. Let me tell you, that his hands still had a whiff of rotten mushrooms hours later.

After he had disposed of them, we drove into the village. Imagination is an interesting phenomena. Somehow I could still smell the not-so-nice mushroom aroma in our car. As you know, we live in the country and lately the farmers have been putting natural fertilizer onto their fields. At least that is what I think it was, as a whiff of it reminded me of cows, pigs and their toilet habits. When we parked at the local store, a whiff permeated the air and jokingly I told Bob that the mushroom smell had followed us into the village. Oh my, he wasn't amused at all....

Thank goodness for parents and their advice and for a husband who picks semi-rotten mushrooms form the compost heap!

Biggi

A little bit of a colourful nature scene to disperse the image of rotten mushroom peels....