We’ve been ‘home’ in West Sweden for a week now, and because it’s been a long, hot dry summer there’s a dearth of wild mushrooms. Like all the other fungus fanatics in Sweden we’ve been keeping an eye on the reports ready to leap in the car and head off to the woods somewhere to harvest the first of the Porcini or Chanterelles. A trip further north to Dalsland turned up lovely lingon berries but no mushrooms.  However it’s been an unsettled week and thunderstorms and torrential rain have got everybody’s hopes up. A warm summer, followed by a good long soaking – could this year be THE bumper year when we could be picking tens of kilos of Karl Johan (the Swedish for Penny Bun or Porcini) instead of just kilos? We’ve yet to find out but we’ll keep you posted. In the meantime a little recce in the woods yesterday turned up two lovely Orange Birch Bolete (Leccinum Versipelle) which will go in our Forest Mix, and a picture perfect Chanterelle. Ceps can come up more or less overnight but chanterelles take a little longer to grow, so the plan is to keep checking our favourite picking spots till it all comes together. Not long now….