Well, there is still a fungus among us, but it’s just not as visible. This is the before and after photos of the base of the compost bin taken today when Damsel and I set out to eliminate the toadstools flourishing around the bin. Click on either image to enlarge.
We’ve been composting here in Arizona virtually since we moved here. We had a long time tradition of composting when we lived in California, and brought that with us here. We’re not enviro-freaks, but just interested in recycling what we can to our advantage.
When we noticed the toadstools we thought that it would be wise to eliminate them, given the habit of one of the two dogs to randomly pick up something off of the ground and eat it. We worried that this might be a toxic form of the mushroom genus.
I found several references on-line to fungus in the compost and they all indicated that this was a normal occurrence if the compost is not turned regularly. The references all said that toadstools would not hurt the compost.
So, we raked the red gravel rocks away from the bin, scraped the toadstool flesh off of the ground and tossed it into the bin. We used a couple of gardening tools to toss the contents of the bin to turn it over after taking some of the castings to use as soil for Damsel’s spring garden projects.
As I scooped out some of the rich compost soil, I could see that the worms are alive and well and will continue to do their natural thing as we recycle kitchen scraps, napkins, facial tissue, paper towels, flower petals and so forth. We find that the composting results in Arizona are, overall, better than we had in California.