If you've surveyed your yard recently you may have noticed blooms of mushrooms popping up all over.

Varied in size and shape, they almost look alien and upon close inspection, they can look a bit threatening.

Mushrooms are the fruiting (spore-producing) structures of fungi that grow in our yards – gardens and lawn.

Fungi grow as extensive fine thread-like structures on all organic matter. They are decay organisms, meaning they live on the organic matter in soil and compost, lawn thatch, mulch, piles of leaves and logs, dead/decaying wood and decaying tree roots.

Patch asked Butch Teal, assistant manager of Garden*Hood in Grant Park about the blooms and how to get rid of them.

The best waty to treat them is spraying neem oil, made from pressing the fruits and the seeds of the neem evergreen, he said.

The reason we're seeing so many of them right now is because it's been wet and warm – perfect for these living odes to decay. While mushrooms are a delicacy and French, Spanish and Itallian cuisine use truffles — the fruiting body of a subterranean mushroom — you may want to hold off on that idea in metro Atlanta.

Unless you're well trained in telling the difference between poisonous and non-poisonous varieties, it's best not to take that risk, and to assume they're poiosonous, he said.

Please watch the video for tips on how to get rid of them.