Sorry for the National Enquirer imitation, but I was pretty taken aback Wednesday evening when I discovered these tan blobs on the mulch in one of my gardens. It looked like the world’s largest bird poop, sort of. Other sources compare it to dog vomit.
I took a photo and after a quick Internet search discovered that I have “slime mold.” This basically harmless fungi preys on mulches in times of high heat and humidity. That makes sense since we’ve been setting humidity records nearly every day this week and the temps have been consistently in the 90s during the day. The mold “engulfs its food,” according to this helpful article from Texas A&M University. There isn’t much to do about slime mold except control watering and hope for drier days ahead. Fortunately, those are in the forecast for next week.
Slime Molds aren’t fungi. 🙂