What in the world is happening on my mulch???

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Slime Mold!

It looks like a frothy, yellow (or can be orange) slime–actually looks like vomit.  The yellow is the early fruiting stage. It’s not a mold or fungus, but a primitive single-cell organism with spore reproduction called “Fuligo”. There are over 700 varieties of ‘Slime Mold’.

It grows in warm, very moist areas like mulch. It’s not harmful or dangerous, but it sure is ugly in the garden. We’ve certainly had the rain and the steamy hot days. In lawns it’s especially bad since it blocks out the sun and could kill the grass under it.  Since air is its enemy you can either let the air dry it out on its own (it turns brown as it dries out) or scrape it off and rake the mulch thus, loosening up the mulch – getting air to dry out the mulch. The latter is what I’m going to do in my mulch slime mold.