The secret world of fungi, from its supernatural links to its potential for curing modern diseases, will be the subject of a festival first near Wareham in Dorset.
Fittingly for the Halloween season, the hunt will be on at Carey’s Secret Garden from Friday 25th to Sunday 27th October 2024, for witches butter, fairy bonnets, funeral bells, destroying angels, death caps, hairy curtain crust and crystal brain fungus.
Mushy Mentor Andy Knott will lead a fungi forage at Carey’s Secret Garden
Not far from the formal gardens, Andy finds witches butter growing on a patch of hairy curtain crust
UV night trail and cookery master class
The Secret All Things Fungi Festival, tucked away on the beautiful Careys Estate, will see mycologists and fungi fanatics gather to share their knowledge and creations with visitors.
Carey’s Secret Garden has teamed up with experts Max Mudie, Jana Nicole and Andy Knott to stage Dorset’s first ever fungi festival with foraging forays, art installations, macro photography, an ultraviolet night trail and a cookery master class to make mushroom and truffle soup.
On both Friday 25th and Saturday 26th October 2024, there will be free demonstrations, displays and talks as part of a general admission ticket to Carey’s Secret Garden, with tickets on sale to join experts on forays and at workshops in the garden grounds.
On Sunday 27th October 2024, the Dorset Fungi Group will host a foray on the Careys Estate, for which tickets must be pre-booked. There is no general admission to Carey’s Secret Garden on Sunday.
The event will also link up with the Purbeck Film Festival to host two fungi-themed film screenings, The Biggest Little Farm and Fungi: The Web of Life, with tickets for the movies available through the film festival website.
Simon Constantine alongside part of the original Berlin Wall on his Secret Garden estate
Carey’s Secret Garden has many fungi that will be revealed in a new light on a UV walk
“They are real fun guys”
Secret Garden owner and finder, Simon Constantine said:
“Careys Secret Garden are very excited to be working alongside the team at All Things Fungi festival – they are real fun guys!
“We are lucky enough to have a rich mycological landscape in this region and hope that this will inspire more and more people to discover it.
“The fact we have the expertise of the All Things Fungi team and contributors to guide you is a wonderful bonus and one we hope will only continue to grow.
“We would love families to join us at the Secret All Things Fungi Festival, dive into the world of fungi and discover the magic of mushrooms, savour delicious flavours, and celebrate the beauty of biodiversity.”
Small but mighty – the discovery of a fungi rich in medicinal qualities caused a lot of excitement
Thankfully high up in a tree, a funeral bell is a deadly mushroom to be avoided at all costs
Killer fungi can possess insects
Photographer Max Mudie and artist Jana Nicole already run a successful All Things Fungi Festival in Sussex, which takes place in mid-September, and are lending their expertise to a lighter version of the event in Purbeck.
Local mycology enthusiast Andy Knott, also known as the Mushy Mentor, has helped organise guest speakers, arts and crafts, fungi forays, and even a mushroom market where visitors can shop for grow kits, clothing and health supplements.
He will be leading a foray around the estate, where on previous tours he has discovered many wonders, including the edible but hugely parasitic honey fungus which holds the record for the largest organism in the world at around 2,000 acres.
He has also found cordyceps – a killer fungi which can possess insects and which was the inspiration behind the horror series The Last Of Us – mushrooms which can communicate with trees to warn them of diseases in the forest, and medicinal fungi which may hold the secret to tackling dementia.
Some field mushrooms will make a good lunch, some definitely won’t – never munch on a hunch!
Parasol mushrooms can make good eating, unless the slugs get to them first
“Never munch on a hunch”
Andy Knott said:
“There are many edible mushrooms that can be found in the wild in Dorset, but if you are foraging to eat a mushroom you have to be very careful and be absolutely certain that what you are picking up is edible. Never munch on a hunch is the golden rule.
“Then there are gourmet edible mushrooms like your porcinis and your chanterelles, and other not very good edibles like witches butter, which is really only famine food.
“There are a lot of references to witches and fungi, which seems very negative, but perhaps they were the wise ones way back then who had the knowledge to forage the countryside, survive famines and make use of the natural medicines.
“Otzi, the ice man from 5,000 years ago, whose mummified body was found in the Alps, had some birch polypore mushroom in his pouch, which has many medicinal uses and it is thought he may have been taking it to get rid of worms in his stomach.”
A rare Coral Tooth hericium, closely related to Lion’s Mane, found in Purbeck by Andy Knott
The folklore of the fly agaric mushroom – including its link to Santa’s flying reindeer – will be revealed at the festival
“Chinese call it the brain mushroom”
Andy added:
“Reishi is known as the mushroom of immortality in Asian medicine, we found one wild in Dorset and at Jurassic Coast Mushrooms I can clone wild mushrooms on agar, and then grow them in a controlled environment.
“You can dry them, chop them up and you can make a medicinal tea out of them. It’s very good for your immune system, it’s a fascinating mushroom.
“Lion’s mane and reishi teas help with memory and concentration, though you can’t pick lion’s mane as it’s protected in the UK – if you were to forage it you would be looking at a fine and possibly a prison sentence.
“They promote NGF, neurone growth factor, and in scans they have seen brain cells waking up after taking it. Ancient Chinese medicine has been using lion’s mane for thousands of years and they call it the brain mushroom.
“It’s only in the last 10 years in the UK that we have come to discover it and try its properties. I think that we used to have this knowledge, perhaps before the monasteries were decimated, but we have since lost it.”
Award winning artist Jana Nicole will host a workshop to create a nature inspired collage
Here’s one I made earlier … a fungi inspired collage by Jana Nicole
Creating nature inspired collages
Jana Nicole, an award winning contemporary artist, will be leading a drop in workshop for young artists to create their own nature inspired collage, and said:
“At All Things Fungi, we celebrate the creative spirit of fungi, exploring the somewhat blurred boundaries where art meets science through artistic expression, innovative programming, and imaginative installations.
“The festival is a canvas for creativity, inviting participants to explore the boundless realms of both nature and human ingenuity. For far too long, fungi have been underappreciated and understudied and we feel it’s time to give them the attention and recognition they deserve.
“This eco-conscious event will be educational and family friendly, involving local and national fungi groups and aiming to cover mushroom identification, cultivation, composting and rewilding.
“Most importantly, we will celebrate the people at the forefront of mycology in the UK and beyond, and whether you’re new to fungi or an experienced mycologist there will be something for everyone.”
Mycologist and photographer Max Mudie specialises in ultra close-up studies
More glow in the dark mushrooms make a stunning composition
Deep dive into mycology
Max Mudie, whose life long love for mushrooms sparked an obsession documenting, cultivating and identifying fungi, was shortlisted for an international macro photography award in 2023, and will lead a macro photography session at the festival.
His deep dive into mycology means he has found and identified hundreds of species, many of which we know little about and has contributed to the Darwin’s tree of life project at Kew Gardens with wild clones.
Make an autumn visit to Carey’s Secret Garden, there’s always plenty to see
And once you start to look for mushrooms, you’ll find them everywhere!
Further information
- To book tickets and find out more about the festival at Carey’s Secret Garden
- Book tickets for fungi films as part of the Purbeck Film Festival