Wannabeegreen
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Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:33 pm
Location: Dubai

Mushroom question

I would love to grow mushrooms but I can't get the spores here, is there any other way to grow them? Such as planting button or portobello mushrooms directly. Apologies if it's a dumb question I'm a first timer at this!!

mscratch
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Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:59 am
Location: S.E. Mo.

There are no dumb questions..if you mean can you take a grown mushroom and plant it in soil, the answer is no.. check your garden catalogs for the spore and use your search engine to find and research the how toos of doing this and the setup you will need. The kits are a bit expensive but you can learn to innoculate your own logs with the spore..

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

One year, I became really interested in growing edible mushrooms indoors for about 4 months. It was a LOT of work, with many pitfalls, though really rewarding when successful. There's a thread about that in the Permaculture Forum.

If you can get REALLY fresh mushrooms, you can place the caps on a sterilized glass surface and cover with a sterilized jar or bowl. I simply washed with hot soapy water then sprayed with alcohol and allowed to dry, though you could boil them for 10 minutes.

Keep in cool -- no more than low to mid-70'sF -- area out of direct sunlight overnight to 24 hours. If successful, you will see spores that were released from the gills on the glass.

We'll go from there. What you do is grow/culture the spores in agar medium. I set up to use them right away.

Mycologists collect spores from all kinds of mushrooms on paper -- black for light colored spores, white for dark colored spores. I understand they can be saved for later use this way, but I was most successful with freshly collected spores on sterilized glass. I tended to get contaminants when trying to collect on paper and ended up with mold on the growing medium. You are supposed to be able to separate out the healthy spores from the mold and culture them, but with my temporary and cobbled together "clean room" set up and with many other things going on, I couldn't stay on top of them to do all that.

You can also propagate mushrooms from a piece of fresh mushroom cap in agar medium, or from the base of the mushroom stem if the part that was attached to the growing medium is still there. In this case, in a cardboard, straw, sawdust, or grain substrate. But again, they have to be extremely fresh mushrooms.

Wannabeegreen
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Posts: 27
Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:33 pm
Location: Dubai

Yikes sounds very complicated.... No chance for either very fresh mushrooms as they get shipped on freight to Dubai in packs and no logs on a balcony garden :( sounds like that little adventure will have to wait, shame though I have mushroom addictions haha

Dillbert
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Location: Central PA

regrets, not a lot of haha about it.

mushrooms have cultural requirements - temp & humidity - that if not met absolutely guarantee total failure.

and, given your location, those are going to be difficult to meet without extreme artificial environmental inputs.

one of those things. like growing sweet corn at the Arctic Circle - possible, but really a tough chore.

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jal_ut
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Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:20 pm
Location: Northern Utah Zone 5

First off, mushrooms have no flavor and no food value and are grown on manure. Uggghhhh. Who needs them?

Sorry, I know that is not what you want to hear. Just my warped opinion.

Plant some carrots. :)

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rainbowgardener
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Location: TN/GA 7b

Mushrooms are an excellent source of potassium and a rich source of riboflavin, niacin, and selenium. "Shiitake mushrooms have been used for centuries by the Chinese and Japanese to treat colds and flu. Lentinan, a beta-glucan isolated from the fruiting body of shiitake mushrooms, appears to stimulate the immune system, help fight infection, and demonstrates anti-tumor activity." https://www.vegetarian-nutrition.info/updates/mighty-mushrooms.php

They have hardly any calories but are high fiber including fiber types associated with cholesterol-lowering (chitin) and healthy hearts (beta-glutan).

Most mushrooms have a high protein content, usually around 20-30% by dry weight. They are good sources of Niacin and other important B vitamins. Vitamin D and other important minerals, such as phosphorous, zinc, and magnesium. https://www.mushroom-appreciation.com/nutritional-value-of-mushrooms.html

Whether or not you like them is completely individual preference, but they are in fact a very healthy food.

Wannabeegreen
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Posts: 27
Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:33 pm
Location: Dubai

Decided that the mushrooms will have to wait and started off a couple of tomato plants and strawberries instead :D but full sun or half sun in 10b... Hmm..



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