Fungal takeover

LG_

The fungi appear to be having a fun time in my garden at the moment. Can anyone help me identify them, or tell me if you think they're a problem. My instinct is to let them get on with their lives, but should I?

1. These pop up in a bit of the lawn each year. No stalks to speak of. Explode and disappear. 


2. A different one in the lawn. Detached because I knocked it, which was how I spotted it.


3. This has come up a couple of times just inside my lean-to greenhouse. Absolutely stinks just before collapsing and disappearing. This is by far the biggest example yet. No smell at the moment.




4. This is a new one and seems to be attempting domination of my raised veg beds. There's loads of it.






Apologies for the slightly out of focus shots. Didn't have my glasses on, and now it's raining so I'm not inclined to go and take them again!

Helix

First one can’t really see well enough.  The second is a bolete...maybe birch or bay bolete but can’t be sure. The third could be one of the agaricus mushrooms.  And the last one could be the wonderfully named Jew’s ear, or witches butter or indeed a jelly tongue.  But most probably a dull peziza.  I wouldn’t eat any of them. 

LG_

Thank you So much (sorry, didn't see until now that someone had responded).

Looking at online images of peziza vs. Jew's Ear, I reckon its texture looks more like the latter. Not going to eat it! There is SO MUCH of it though - these raised beds have had a fair amount of bought-in manure and there's an enormous oak tree nearby which drops a lot of twigs - do you think that's why? No problem with it growing all around my veg?

BobTheGardener

The vast majority of fungi are beneficial and are just about the only things which can break down woody matter in the soil into forms which plants can take in as nutrients.  They won't infect your veg and will actually help them grow.  Good article here:

https://www.ictorganics.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/articles.detail/articleID/8/index.htm

purplerallim

Could number one be a puff ball? Just a small one.

Joy*

Have you ever used spent mushroom compost? Some years ago we used a huge amount on the borders and for a couple of years had a significant crop of lovely mushrooms. (Mum and dad were farmers who were used to mushroom identification).

LG_

I think the first one might be an earth ball?

No, I've not used spent mushroom compost, but the raised beds are quite high so were originally filled with all kinds of stuff - cardboard, compost from my brother's garden (lots of guinea pig poo in that too), bought-in topsoil, kitchen scraps, bought-in manure etc. And a lot of twigs and leaves from next door's oak fall in too. I clear up the majority of those, but the soil is twiggier than I'd like. 

Not sure whether to remove nos. 3 and 4 and put them on the compost heap, or just ignore them.