Consumer Q&A: Garden Phenomena

Q: There was an almost perfect circle of mushrooms growing in my yard this September. What caused them to grow this way? It was amazing.

A: What you saw was a phenomenon known as a fairy ring. The name comes from an old folk tale. People once believed that mushrooms growing in a circle marked the area where fairies danced at night.

Though it is fun to let our imaginations take flights of fancy, there is a scientific explanation for fairy rings. Mushrooms are the fruiting part of the fungus growing in your yard – the part that produces spores that enables the fungus to spread to other areas. Underneath the ground is the mycelium, a network of fibers that feeds the mushrooms and that grows outward from the point where it began. As years go by and the mycelium grows, what was originally one mushroom or a clump of mushrooms may become a circle of mushrooms. Where several rings converge or when the mycelium meets obstacles in the soil, the fungus activity stops or slows, giving the ring a more erratic shape. 

Fairy rings are most common in lawns and forests. Sometimes you will see a circle of grass, with or without mushrooms, that is darker green than the surrounding grass. That is because the mycelium is breaking down organic matter in the soil and releasing nutrients that the grass is feeding on.

Q: I just cut open a tomato and found seeds sprouting inside the tomato. Is this normal? Can I plant them?

A: What you described is not common, but it does happen. Usually the gel around the tomato seeds inhibits germination, but sometimes it doesn’t, especially after a long period in storage.

You can scrape out the tomato sprouts or put the tomato on the compost pile if there are too many seeds sprouting. You can plant them if you are curious, but we don’t recommend it in the middle of winter, since you’d have to keep the plants growing inside until danger of frost is past in the spring. Also, we don’t think growing tomatoes that carry this undesirable trait is a good idea.

Q: When I was a child, an older person showed me how to make a “frog” using the leaf from a flower in her garden. The leaf was fleshy. She pressed the leaf and blew into it. It inflated like a frog’s throat. Do you know what kind of flower this was?

A: It was probably the showy sedum, also called showy stonecrop (Hylotelephium spectabile, formerly Sedum spectabile). It could have been a similar sedum or stonecrop species such as Hylotelephium telephium. 

The interior of the leaves is fleshy, but they have cellophane-like skin. Gently press and rub a leaf between your fingers to get the skin and the interior to separate. Then blow into the torn part of the leaf. It will inflate like a croaking frog. This is also called making a “frog belly” and a “doll’s hot water bottle.” Here is a video we found of someone doing it.

These sedums are commonly available in garden centers and nurseries. Popular varieties include ‘Autumn Joy’ and ‘Brilliant.’ They are easy to grow.