Fungi grow in soils where the conditions they like are, somewhat acidic, fairly moist, with a good bit of woody material. The mushrooms we see are the seed stalks produced by fungi when those conditions are good and they will be reproducing. Neither the fungi nor the mushrooms are in any way harmful so there is no need to remove them except, possibly, for appearances sake. If there is a need to remove them be sure to compost them rather then throw them out since they do have nutrients that could be used by other plants. Here is a link that might be useful: About mushrooms

I notice 3/6 of my Scotch Bonnet Chile Pepper are showing there heads... Day 6/7 Capsicum chinense 'Scotch Bonnet' 3/6 " " 'Bhut Jolokia' 0/6 Capsicum annuum 'Jamaican Yellow'0/6

This appears to be artillery fungus, sphaerobulus species. Once the cups fill with water, the fungal spores are expelled with surprising force. Light sensitivity plays a role and the spores attach themselves to light colored surfaces including cars, house siding, anything white. The spores are extremely hard to remove once they have attached themselves to a surface. They grow in/on bark mulch and do no harm to plants but they do spread rapidly and can create a real mess in the wrong place. The bottom 3 or 4 feet of a neighbor's white house became pretty well coated a few years ago. He's still battling it even though most of the bark mulch was replaced with gravel.

dbarron, I didn't go look. I'd have to venture into the woods and we were too busy with the grandkids all day Sunday. I could have dragged them off into the woods with us to see what we could find, but the youngest is only 4 and she thinks we live in a Bambi world where all the wildlife more or less love one another and everything lives happily ever after, so I hate to ruin that for her at such a young age. She'll learn soon enough. I also am not overly fond of stumbling upon animal carcasses because I'm just not into all that blood and gore. I thought I'd just wait and see where the vultures show up.....if they show up. Sometimes, you know, the larger predators carry their kill away. We are close enough to the Red River that they often drag away what they kill back down into the river bottomlands where they tend to roam, or sometimes the cougars cache it underneath brush. In particular, I do not want to find anyone's cache because that would be too scary. I'll tell you this, though. The deer usually come and eat their deer corn overnight. This morning, the deer corn we put out last evening was untouched. It didn't even look like bunnies or coons had been around (still muddy enough to see their tracks if they show up) overnight to nibble at the deer corn. This morning, the deer came around 8 or 8:30 a.m. to eat, and they came in a large herd, not in the usual small groups of 3 or 4. So, of course, at the very least we know that they heard what I heard, or they smelled death....or....somehow....they just know. I wish they could tell me what they know. There's not many predators that scare the deer so that narrows things down in my mind a bit. Rebecca, I do try to plan herbs somewhat, but they also have their own way of popping up in random spots---particularly the catnip. I think the cats sometimes carry catnip seeds on their fur and deposit it just wherever. When they do, I just leave it wherever it pops up. Grasshoppers love catnip and lemon balm, so both of them are early indicators of a developing grasshopper problem if I just pay attention. When I see the catnip and lemon balm leaves riddled with many, many small holes as the grasshopper hatch is occurring in Spring, I can tell from the damage level if it is going to be a bad grasshopper year or not, and if I need to order Semaspore or Nolo Bait and deal with the young hoppers or if the population is so small that I don't have to bother. That's one surprising way herbs have proven to be very useful in the garden. Dawn