Growing mushrooms

[ElizabethB]

IDK if this is the proper forum.

-- it is now because the topic is now in the new Mushroom Forum -applestar-

I stumbled on this link and found it interesting.

https://theadvocate.com/features/food/48 ... -mushrooms

Do any of you grow mushrooms for your own use?

I use lots of mushrooms in my recipes. I use Cremini Mushrooms most because they are readily available, have a great, meaty texture and much more flavor than Button Mushrooms.

I keep dried mushrooms in the pantry - Shitake, Morels and Chanterelles. They are expensive but I opt for dried over fresh because I use small amount at a time. I can get them fresh from Fresh Market and Whole Foods but I never use enough at one time to justify buying fresh.

What mushrooms do you use?

[sweetiepie]

Occasionally I will can mushrooms but usually I dry them in my pantry too. It is just easier to throw them in something then opening a can and not using them all. I didn't even cook much with them until I would get a package in a Bountiful Basket and have no idea what I was going to do with it.

I have never grown them due to the cost. I would like to. I don't have any favorites, mostly because ND doesn't have many choices at the grocery store.

[Sweyn]

IDK if this is the proper forum.

It doesn't matter. It's a very good idea for a thread.

Can they be grown on a small scale, at home?

[rainbowgardener]

Hopefully applestar will stop by, because she has done this. I expect the easiest way for a beginner to start would be a mushroom growing kit. These are usually some kind of substrate, maybe wood chips, sawdust, cardboard, coffee grounds etc, already inoculated with mushroom spores. What they say is you just have to keep it misted and magically mushrooms appear (which does not mean they are magic mushrooms! ). I have never done it. But yes, this can be done small scale, at home.

There are kits for button mushrooms, oysters, portobellos, shitake, etc. But read carefully, sometimes what they are selling is just the spores without substrate or vice versa. I would get it from Amazon or somewhere where they have customer reviews. I read customer reviews for several of the kits. Some kits had nothing but people saying this did not work; some kits had satisfied customers.

[applestar]

Thanks @rainbowgardener, but I haven't been doing much recently.
Here's the link to the thread I made before when I got really interested in growing them indoors:
Subject: Growing Edible Mushrooms - from kits, spawns, and plugs

I have been wanting to go back and try again, but it has to be during the winter for ideal indoor temperature, and I've been preoccupied with overwintering peppers and growing tomatoes, etc.

I'm looking for a strain of shiitake or other mushroom species that can be grown outside here even with the annual summer drought. Without rain, I don't have a good natural source of chlorine-free water. I'm thinking if I can get my pond project going this spring like I hope to, I might be able to incorporate some multi-step filtering bog•reservoir that would be supplied by the outside faucet during drought... But ideas involving this project get grander and grander -- ... {rainbarrel overflow}, {vertical garden}, {aquaponics}... every time I start thinking about them

[applestar]

Isn't it funny how things work out?

...TODAY, DH unboxed his new toy -- a chainsaw -- to cut down an ivy covered dead tree that fell over and was leaning on our mulberry tree. I had asked him to take care of it before the ivy started growing and wrapped onto the mulberry tree.

After he took care of that tree and another one covered in honeysuckle that fell onto a rose of Sharon by the shed, -- well you know guys and power tools -- he looked around for more things to cut with his new chainsaw and his eyes registered that a heavy lower limb of a willow oak was hanging over the kids' redwood swingset and fort. The branches get weighed down and rest on the swingset after heavy rain during the summer.

...YEP he went after it -- 4" diameter at thickest -- perfect for my mushroom logs. He wasn't too put upon when I asked him to cut any 3-4" diameter sections into 24-30" logs.

[Ozark Lady]

I would love to grow mushrooms too.

I would even like to go mushroom hunting and find some. A good friend of mine posted on another forum, that she found some morels yesterday!

I love morels! Does anyone else love to find wild mushrooms that are easy to identify?

I wonder if we can get spores from the ones we find, and get a start that way? Shake out the spores and then eat the mushroom...

Sounds too good to be feasible.

[rainbowgardener]

I don't know, but always good to see you here, Ozark Lady!

[applestar]

Yes! welcome back Ozark Lady!

...I know the theory, but not the actual practice.

I think with morels, if you have the right kind of habitat, it's entirely feasible to start your own patch. They do sell morel patch starters.

Just for fun, take a mushroom, trim off the stem, and put it on glass or a pece of paper. If you know the spores are light colored, use black paper and if you know the spores are dark colored, use white paper. Cover with an overturned bowl or cup and leave for 24 hours.

With flat capped mushrooms, you will get a "spore print" from the spore falling from the gills under the cap. I don't know about morels -- how and where the spores fall out... But you should still get some.

To grow the spores, you need to catch the spores on sterilized material and use sterilized cover. I baked my papers at low temperature first (carefully) or used the glass lid for Weck canning jar. I got to the point of growing the spores with varying success -- some were grown to the next stage of excising the hyphae and agar and transplanting to fresh agar, some were contaminated with mold early on and had to be discarded.

...Oooohhh I REALLY want to try this again!

[Ozark Lady]

Thanks Rainbow and Applestar!

I have seen an article where a guy built mushroom boxes outside, and started mushrooms. A long time went by, nothing at all. Then he had a leaky garden hose, and mushrooms popped up, everywhere except in the box he had so carefully prepared. I can't remember the details so I went looking for it. I had no luck finding it, maybe I have it in notes somewhere, I will look closer. But, and this is a big BUT, I found a very interesting site... Mushroom Appreciation.
I think, that I got my answer in this paragraph from them...

To create this solution you'll need some wild morels. They should be mature, although not mushy or rotting. A few mushrooms per gallon of water will be sufficient.
Follow these easy steps:
Start with some clean, non-chlorinated water in a food-safe container.
Add a pinch of salt and about a tablespoon of molasses to the water and stir. You don't need much of each. The salt is to inhibit bacterial growth; the molasses is to provide sugars for germinating spores.
Add mushrooms and let the mixture sit covered for 1 to 2 days in a temperate place. Any longer than that and you risk bacterial contamination.
After you strain and remove the mushrooms you'll have a liquid with millions of spores!
This spore liquid can be spread over a prepared bed as described above (sandy soil with peat moss, ashes, and wood chips). It can also be spread in other known morel habitats, such as at the base of dying elm trees. Feel free to experiment with your slurries.
This process is easy, but the downside is that it can be unreliable. A spore slurry is not as far along in the life cycle as mycelia in spawn, so the odds of success aren't as good.
However this is one of the cheapest and easiest ways of growing morel mushrooms, so why not give it a try?

On this site the lady talks about all kinds of mushroom info and even about grow kits, and tree growing them, etc.

It is not a forum, I don't know if they sell stuff or not, but it was very informative...

https://www.mushroom-appreciation.com/

Obviously, if I soak the morels for a couple days, I don't want to eat them!

[ElizabethB]

The only found wild mushroom that I have eaten is Lion's Main. G found it in the woods where he hunts.

The first time he found it he harvested his first day out. By the time he got home it was not usable. A real shame because it was HUGE. Over 5 lbs. Looking at the mushroom and pictures on line I was fairly certain that it was a Lion's Main but I would never risk eating wild mushrooms without expert verification. I brought it to my university's botany department and had it identified.

The following year G brought home a smaller mushroom - still over 1 lb. from the same tree. He marked it on his GPS. That time he waited until his last day in the woods to harvest it.

It has a mild flavor. We really liked it in eggs. It was also a nice addition to salads and my no carb leek and mushroom soup.

I really should d some homework. IDK if there are any other edible wild mushrooms growing in my area. I think I have an e-mail address for the university mycologist Is that the correct term for a mushroom specialist?

G is back on his low/no carb diet. We went shopping today (making groceries in NOLA speak) and I picked up 2 lbs. of Cremini mushrooms, a lot of leaks and chicken broth. I also picked up a 1 ounce pack of dried Porcini mushrooms for a more intense mushroom flavor. $5.69 for 1 ounce of dried mushrooms Fortunately the flavor of dried mushrooms is intense and only a small amount is needed.

Tomorrow I will make a LARGE pot of leek and mushroom soup and freeze it in individual serving size packages. G has been purchasing the Ideal Protein soup mix to have with a large salad and steamed vegetables for lunch when he is home. That stuff is $4 per pack - 1 serving of soup. Stupid crazy.

Anyway - thanks for all of the input. Keep it coming.

Ozark Lady so glad to have you back. Missed you!

[applestar]

Subject: Mushroom Gardening?

@hendi_alex how are your shiitake logs doing this year?

I FINALLY got the chance to try this

...

[Sweyn]

Hopefully applestar will stop by, because she has done this. I expect the easiest way for a beginner to start would be a mushroom growing kit. These are usually some kind of substrate, maybe wood chips, sawdust, cardboard, coffee grounds etc, already inoculated with mushroom spores. What they say is you just have to keep it misted and magically mushrooms appear (which does not mean they are magic mushrooms! ). I have never done it. But yes, this can be done small scale, at home.

There are kits for button mushrooms, oysters, portobellos, shitake, etc. But read carefully, sometimes what they are selling is just the spores without substrate or vice versa. I would get it from Amazon or somewhere where they have customer reviews. I read customer reviews for several of the kits. Some kits had nothing but people saying this did not work; some kits had satisfied customers.

I've just seen this so, thanks. Can you buy kits in garden centres, as well?

[applestar]

I have seen kits in grocery stores, garden centers, even mall kiosks. And most gardening catalogs/websites has at least a tiny listing. Personally, because the spores have a short shelf life in the packaged/inoculated substrate condition unless properly stored, I would prefer to mail/on-line order directly from the source. Keep in mind the transit time and weather/temperature conditions and if necessary, order by overnight express mail that includes refrigeration/climate controlled shipping. Read up on temperature requirements for indoor and outdoor growing and get suitable strains that are adapted to your available conditions.

The two sources I have considered and purchased from with good results are Fungi Perfecti in Washington State (fungi.com) and Field and Forest in Wisconsin (fieldforest.net). I have also heard good things about Mushroom Mountain in South Carolina.

[MichaelC]

I've found that there is a vast wealth of information on mushroom cultivation on forums that are dedicated to growing psilocybe mushrooms. They have a lot of financial incentive to research best practices and increasing yields.

[Sweyn]

Very helpful information. Thanks rainbow gardener and applestar.

[Gary350]

I tried growing mushrooms about 1985. I had plenty of mycelium growing in 40 lb bags of composted cow manure but never did get any mushrooms. I'm not willing to try it again without help from someone with years of experience that knows how it should be done.

[applestar]

With all the rain you get in TN, you should have no trouble growing shiitake on logs outside, Gary350. I have to water my logs.

...looks like I've been posting my updates in this thread Subject: Mushroom Gardening?