Are mushrooms good for your garden? You bet.

Fungi in general are very important to soil health. By avoiding tilling, you don’t tear up the tiny mycelium running through the soil… and by letting things rot in peace, you Deepen the Awesomeness Of The Mystical Soil Web. Or something along those lines. I created a compost tumbler out of a 55-gallon drum (which sounds better on paper than it works in real life – you can read the whole hilariously stupid story in my book Compost Everything) and then forgot to tumble it for a while. An incredible flush of mushrooms was the result.

What makes mushrooms good composters is their ability to break down tough fibers.

Fungi decompose what many bacteria can’t. Wood and paper fibers, for instance. If you see them in your yard or your compost, be happy. Good things are happening. The mushrooms you see, interestingly, are only the fruiting body of what is often a much larger organism. Tiny threads from one entity could be woven beneath the surface of your entire yard… only to reveal themselves as an occasional mushroom on the surface once in a blue moon.

In a compost pile, fungi take over after the thermophilic bacteria, yeasts and other microorganisms have done a lot of the primary work. As the pile cools, they move in and help complete the process of decomposition. Yes, some fungi attack our plants… but many others feed them in ways we can hardly imagine. From extending the reach of plant roots to providing nutrients from sources unavailable to trees, to dissolving rock, fungi are vital. And, though many are inedible, they do bring a delicate ethereal beauty that’s all their own.