Anyone have experience with fungals on the soil surface?

Hi,

Here in New England we have had over 25" of rain since May 1st. Although I don't live in an area that had flooding, still that is a lot of rain. Plus a lack of sun. My plants seem a little behind in some things, especially the heat lovers like peppers, basil, lavender. The sun has come out often enough to dry things out some, but then right back to rain. We just had three days of sun in a row and that was a big thing. Everything was drying out nicely and responding to the sun, then I started noticing these areas on the bark mulch that at first look like a dog vomitted, but I read on another forum, that it was a fungus. It rained again today briefly, but has been cloudy, in the 90s and humid all day. Now I see two more of these fungus plus what I think is a new one, that is different then the others...it looks like someone threw bright orange pieces of salt, sand, something small like that in a scattered pattern over an area on the surface of the mulch in a partly shady location.

I don't understand why they started sprouting with the sun coming out finally, first of all. Secondly, I don't know what to do with them. I wonder if they are unhealthy to people or animals, if I should attempt to remove them and throw in the garbage, or just cover them over with more cardboard and bark mulch. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
:-)

Cardboard and bark mulch, eh?

It's slimemold. It is just trying to eat your mulch. When a clump starts to disappear with its natural cycle, hit it a bit with the turning fork, as some types have been known to glue woodchips together.
We get them here in even hot & sunny locations that get a lot of water and have woodchip or similar mulch. It is environmental and natural. Toxicities; I doubt it but don't know.
When it first appeared at the botanical gardens here, volunteers wondered what nasty person had managed to vomit in the greenhouse and neither tell anyone nor clean it up!
If you don't like it, flip it upside down or break it up.

Hope this helps,
K. James

Thanks very much KJames...I appreciate the quick response and glad I don't have to worry about it. I am interested to see what it will do if left alone, but if they start getting too numerous, I will probably do just that...flip it upside down.

:-)