Beginner's guide · Chapter 2 of 6
What to bring for mushroom foraging
You do not need much to go mushroom hunting, but the little you take matters. With a good basket, a knife and the right clothes, the outing is comfortable and the mushrooms reach home as they left the forest.
The basket
A wicker or mesh basket, rigid and open. In it mushrooms do not get crushed, they breathe and, as you walk, they drop spores through the gaps, which is a way of sowing the forest you pass through. Plastic bags do the opposite: mushrooms sweat, go soft and spoil within hours, and in many places bags are banned.
Take something else too, a paper bag or a small box, for mushrooms you do not know and want someone to identify. Never in the basket with the rest.
The knife and the brush
A small knife to cut the stem or clean the base, ideally with a brush in the handle: mushroom knives have one. Getting the soil and leaves off in the forest saves work at home and keeps the basket clean.
Clothes and footwear
- Boots with a good sole. You will be on slopes, wet leaves and slippery stones.
- Long trousers, for brambles, thorns and ticks.
- Layers and a waterproof. Autumn in the mountains changes fast, and mushrooms come up just when it rains.
- Something brightly coloured. The mushroom season overlaps with the hunting season: a bright vest or cap makes you visible if there is a hunt nearby.
In the rucksack
- Water and something to eat. You walk more than you think when looking for mushrooms.
- A charged phone and a spare battery, with the map of the area downloaded: many forests have no signal. Recording your route helps you get back to the car and return to the same spot another year.
- A small first-aid kit: plasters, something to disinfect and tweezers for ticks.
- A good field guide, on paper. For learning and comparing, not for deciding on its own what gets eaten.
What you do not need
Rakes and anything for turning over the soil, which besides harming the forest are banned almost everywhere. Plastic bags. And blind faith in a phone app: it helps you learn, but it gets things wrong, and with mushrooms a mistake cannot be undone.