Around 9 a.m. one recent morning, my dad called me at work because there seemed to be kind of a garden emergency going on in one of my raised beds. Growing on the mulch, he said, was a spongy yellow fungus that hadn’t been there the night before — and it was already the size of a dinner plate. When I talked to him a couple hours later, he reported that the fungus had gotten taller.
Of course after hearing all this, my coworkers could hardly contain themselves. They wanted to take a field trip over to see it, and jokes about “The Blob” were batted around for the rest of the day.
Vaguely afraid, I went straight over after work. At the rate it was going, I figured the fungus might well have eaten the whole garden.
Very thankfully, it hadn’t. The Blob had been baked brown by the sun, and looked just like a pile of barf. I poked at it with a stick, and found it to be powdery black just underneath the surface. Nearby, another bright yellow fungus colony was beginning to peek through the mulch. I quickly scraped up every last bit, threw it in the dumpster, and went straight to Google.
It turns out that I had myself a very nice specimen of Dog Vomit Slime Mold. Yes…truly. I’m actually not making this up; that IS the real name. Fuligo septica is not a fungus, but a slime mold. DVSM is a plasmodium (one big single cell with millions of nucleii), and flows across the ground like an amoeba. It progresses very quickly from its young, yellow, slimy stage to the crusty brown “fruiting” stage, and on to the spore stage. It’s harmless to people, pets, and plants, and usually grows atop areas of moist mulch, which it digests as a nitrogen source. Indeed, it’s even good for the garden, since it helps break down decaying matter.
And I must say…a pile of Dog Vomit Slime Mold in your garden is a fantastic conversation starter. 😉
After poking with a stick. It's black underneath...
A new colony beginning to form under the mulch!
I’VE HAD THIS DOG VOMIT SLIME MYSELF IN MY YARD IN THE PAST & WONDERED WHAT IT WAS. THANK YOU FOR SETTLING THAT SCORE. Who Knew? Laura S.
what do I put on the BLOB to control it, or frankly get rid of it?
Ah! I just got this in my garden and was baffled. A quick google search brought me to your post. Thanks!
Hi Kitty,
I’m not sure; I’d try maybe dousing it with boiling water or vinegar, but not if you have plants quite close that you don’t want to harm. In that case probably just removing it by hand would be good, though the spores may have travelled and could recur. Luckily it’s not harmful. I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer!
Good luck with your blob,
Lindsey
Hi Nicole,
Yay! I’m glad it helped you identify the yellow monster in your garden!
Hope it goes away 🙂
Lindsey
That is what happen in my garden, nothing last night when I water it, and this morning is a horrible thing growing in my Rosemary Herb! Looks bad! should I pull the entire plant out?
I found this on my plants today and sprayed it with water thinking someone spilled something there since
I am on a corner lot. Today I looked its
Back so I removed as much as I could by hand. Hopefully I won’t have to fight this thing all summer…it is a big spot of it!
I just found this fungus in my garden yesterday and couldn’t figure out what it was. Thanks everyone & Google for your help. Its good to know this fungus is not harmful.
P.s. will it go away on its own?
Joanne,
Yeah the fungus should peter out on its own eventually. I feared it would take over my garden, but it didn’t. 🙂
Thanks for posting this. I had a huge one of these bloom overnight a few days ago. At first, it was bright yellow and it looked exactly like dog vomit, now it looks more tannish as if the dog vomit has dried, so the name IS perfect. I have to admit, I was definitely a little freaked out when I saw it…And it just keeps getting bigger. I’m glad to hear it is harmless and even beneficial, because it just look so bizarre! Thanks for posting this!!!
I got it overnite! Seems like when it doesn’t rain for awhile you don’t see it. Then all of a sudden it’s there! Thought it was cat vomit.after a good soaking last nite. Big and gross.. I thought the bright yellow is poisonous like a tree frog.prefer not to handle it. Blew the leaves and the blob away!yuch! Your explanation and pic were helpful. Thanks. I still won’t touch it especially after watching the monsters inside of me?(parasites)
Oh one question. Does it happen in black mulch only? I never noticed it on my red cedar mulch.
Cc,
Maybe the red mulch’s coloring acts as a preventive, or maybe it’s not as moist as your darker mulch? Not sure.
It’s bizarre stuff isn’t it.
I’ve got it all over my new mulch – new areas keep coming up each day. When you hose it, a brown dust comes out of it and flies away with the wind – no doubt we’ll get a lot more now. We got the mulch from the neighbours who had a very large mango tree trimmed so I know it’s not dodgy mulch from the tip.
I saw this in my yard and cursed the neighbors dogs! thanks for the heads up.
I don’t understand the impulse to get rid of something in the natural world. Wherever there is an outbreak of something the cure is nearby. Maybe this is the cure to something.
Perhaps!!
Thank you for this information, I just found it also in my garden a few weeks after I put in new mulch. I was terrified but relieved now to have an answer.
Want to say I just found it in my garden was not sure if it was poison or not. So thank you very much. I’ll leave it alone and see what happens.