Update on my Mushroom growing experiences.

[fasttense]

A while back I posted that I was going to try and grow gourmet mushrooms in my garden. I promised I would post what happened. So, I'm keeping my promise. I've made this detailed because people who grow mushrooms really want to know the details.

I planted King Stropharia in an 8x10 pile of wood chips in late May. I was suppose to use new wood chips but I couldn't find any. I ended up getting hardwood wood chips in bags from Lowes. I layered the wood chips with cardboard and mixed in 5 lbs of spawn I bought from Paul Stamet's web site Fungi Perfecti. I covered the bed with straw and placed a tarp over it like a tent to give it shade.

I wanted to plant it earlier but the rain just wouldn't stop and give me a break to get out there to plant. I watered it everyday for a week (we suddenly got drought like conditions) I've moved on to watering it every other day now for about 4 weeks. The rain has come back and despite the tarp, it gets a lot of rain so my watering is not required as frequently.

Some very small weeds have grown up in it and after about a week I started to get what I call overnight mushrooms. These overnight mushrooms are everywhere around here. They come up after a very heavy rain and then are gone by the afternoon. They are very thin and break with just the force of the water. I hope they don't force out the King Stropharia mycelium. There is mycelium everywhere in the bed. But I have not gotten any mushrooms yet. (By the way, I took some of the mycelium and put it in with some damp cardboard in a bag so I don't have to buy some more later on. At 1st it didn't grow. So, I added a sprinkling of potting soil and it is now filling up my bag with white strands nicely.)

Then I grew some White Elm oysters in a gallon glass jar. I layered our spent coffee ground with spawn from Mushroom Mountain and when the jar was filled I sat it in the corner of my kitchen with the lid cracked. I got a clump of primordial to grow but nothing else happened. So, I started spritzing the jar with water 2 or 3 times a day. Then more primordial grew and we got about 2 oz of the best tasting mushrooms I have ever eaten. But it quickly turned green from mold after that and I placed it in the corner of my wood-chipped covered garden path under the rose bush. It's growing there because I can smell the mycelium. It smells of sweet almonds.

Then I decided to grow even more. I got 1 by 20 feet of poly tubing and 5 pounds of wood chip White Elm oyster mushroom spore from Mushroom Mountain. I took a bale of wheat straw and chopped it up in our leaf blower/chopper. I soaked the bale in lime water (12 oz of lime to 50 gallons of water) for 24 hours. Most people boil the straw to kill the competing fungi and germs but I read about this lime method which was much simpler. I let the straw sit overnight on a tarp with an old sheet covering it, to drain it. The next morning I stuffed two 4 1/2 feet tubes with straw layering the spore every 2 inches. I hung them up in an unused bathroom. I poke holes in the tubing on the 2nd day - 1/2 inch crosses every 4 inches. I've kept the temperature around 75 F. and the white mycelium is everywhere. We have a humidifier in the room to keep it moist. I've noticed clumps of primordial growing on the inside of the bags but no mushrooms yet. We'll see.

I'll post again when I get more results.

I made a mistake on the amount of spore I used. It was 5 lbs NOT 25 lbs....big difference. I changed it to the correct amount.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Interesting. Please post again when you have new results.

[ensho]

2. interesting - look forward to learning more from you

nt