Some of the mushrooms look good enough to eat, but you should never eat a mushroom growing in the wild unless you know absolutely for sure what it is. Even mushroom experts need a microscope sometimes to differentiate between good and bad mushrooms.
If children or pets have access to your garden, you should remove the mushrooms and bury them or put them in your compost bin to avoid curious tasting.
Otherwise, should you get rid of them? Are they going to affect your crops? Are they a sign your garden beds harbor a disease?
Some funguses do cause disease, such as those you see growing at the base of trees. They are an indication of root rot. But the mushrooms you see in your garden or lawn are usually not harmful varieties. They are the reproductive bodies of the funguses that are busy decomposing your garden mulch and other organic material. Most of their work takes place out of sight underground where they break down the complex compounds in organic matter and release usable nutrients for plants. They are an indication of healthy garden soil.
We often think of living things being either plants or animals. However, fungi and their mushroom appendages are neither plants nor animals, but a unique kingdom of organisms all their own. You may have seen the delicate strands of hyphae in your compost bin or organic mulches. These are the individual parts of the underground fungal network called mycelium, analogous to the “root” of the mushrooms. This is evidence that the beneficial cycles necessary for a healthy garden ecosystem are under way. The more visible “fruit” only appears when conditions are right, and our summer heat and rains provide some of those conditions. As the mushrooms mature, they open and release spores which float away on the breeze to take root elsewhere.
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