The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: Maigahane on October 02, 2014, 11:47:29 AM
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TL/DR: My full sun front yard is being overridden with mushrooms. How do I get rid of them?
So background: Our front yard used to have a locust tree that we had to cut down 3 years ago. After a couple of years of dealing with the damn baby locust trees that apparently sprout up through the root system when you cut one down (and will even go underneath driveways to invade the neighbors yards...) we finally thought we could get a fresh start on our lawn. We Round-upped the front lawn since it was almost entirely weeds, got a power rake to de-thatch it, and planted new seed last month. And we have grass growing!
Unfortunately while examining my baby grass yesterday I realized that a lot of the brown in my yard is not just the old dead weeds/grass, it's all sorts of different mushrooms. There's a big clump of little ones growing above the remnants of the tree stump even though it's been covered over by quite a bit of new dirt. There's big flat-topped ones growing sporadically, there's little low to the grown ball shaped one, and there are little round things underneath the ground (we found a lot of these last year picking dandelions early in the summer).
My yard is south facing and gets full sun. We have been watering the yard three times a day for 15 minutes because of the new grass (cut down to 2 times a day for 10 minutes now) so the dampness is probably encouraging them but necessary for the new seed
Is there anything we can do to get rid of all these mushrooms without hurting the new grass?
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Are they edible? Post pictures.
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It sounds like they're just feeding off all the old dead brown matter in your yard. They're not really hurting anything and will probably just go away on their own. They normally don't last long. In the meantime, they're pretty much just converting the old dead stuff into compost for your new lawn.
Other than kicking them over or crushing them beneath your foot, there's not really a good way to get rid of them.
Ultimately, if the conditions exist to foster your fungal friends, they will simply return until they are no longer satisfied with that location.
When your grass gets tall enough to mow, you can just mow the mushrooms down (if they're still there). But they will probably be gone or significantly diminished by that point - bored of your grassy lawn.
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Wouldn't put too much thought into them. If you're very concerned purchase a fungicide at the home store.
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Unless you want to dig up the root system, the mushrooms will persist until the fungus has done its job and broken down the dead plant matter. Just deal with it. It's nature taking its course.
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Exactly what they said. You have two options:
1/ Dig up every scrap of dead tree root in your yard.
2/ Live with it until the fungi dispose of all the tree roots for you.
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Well damn, that's what I was afraid of. Thanks for the input everyone, I guess I'm just waiting it out
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Unless you want to dig up the root system, the mushrooms will persist until the fungus has done its job and broken down the dead plant matter. Just deal with it. It's nature taking its course.
If you are having a problem with 'shrooms
Even though in your yard the sun looms
You'll disturb nature's decorum
if you dig up the mycelium
So sit back and watch those things bloom
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The mushrooms are feeding off the tree roots and putting tons of fertilizer back into your soil for FREE!! You'd have to pay a boatload of cash to get the same benefit.
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They need plenty of water to surface so once to don't need to water the grass you should be better
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Based on the subject, I thought this thread was going to go a different direction. :-P