Cultivating Mushrooms

[sime42]

I think they do. You can get spent mushroom compost to use on the garden but you can't use it for everything as it's quite high pH.

[Haironyourchest]

1 hour ago, sime42 said:

I think they do. You can get spent mushroom compost to use on the garden but you can't use it for everything as it's quite high pH.

We did that once. Mixture of peat moss and horse manure, in bags, with salt on top. Raked it into the lawn... Few months later the lawn was growing huge breakfast mushrooms. Grew them for a couple of years before they died out.

[sime42]

Nice. Maybe the mushrooms came in with the manure, from spores ingested by the horses. Or are you saying that mushroom compost is composed of horse manure? I don't get the salt though, what was the thinking behind that? Wouldn't have thought that would be condusive to anything much growing.

[Macpherson]

16 hours ago, Paul in the woods said:

Chanterelles are mycorrhizal so you'll not be able to grow them on logs. I've tried a few wood rotting fungi and found shiitake dowels inserted into fresh oak logs to be the easiest and most productive. There is a wide range of fungi to choose from but as it can take a year or two before fruiting I'd suggest starting off with an easy one. Also something recognisable as you can get other fungi appearing.

Hi, any advice is welcome as I reckon there's a lot to learn 👍

[Stubby]

7 hours ago, sime42 said:

Nice. Maybe the mushrooms came in with the manure, from spores ingested by the horses. Or are you saying that mushroom compost is composed of horse manure? I don't get the salt though, what was the thinking behind that? Wouldn't have thought that would be condusive to anything much growing.

I think they are still in the " spent " mushroom compost . There was a firm near me who sold spent mushroom compost . Darlington Mushrooms they were called . They sell it off when the yeald drops off . However it still produces for some time .  

[5thelement]

There is a company in Brighton that collects all the spent coffee grounds from the masses of coffee shops in town. They compress the coffee into recycled card boxes and impregnate them with different fungi, you spray a slot in the box each morning until the mushrooms appear.

I got given one for my birthday a while back.

Put them in the kitchen windowsill, got a kilo of hot oyster mushrooms after a week or so.

 

[sime42]

I've had a couple of similar kits. One was coffee grounds, one was some kind of grain. Both were quite productive. Though I feel they would have liked a higher humidity really, even with the spraying. Not really suited to Centrally Heated homes.

[Paul in the woods]

9 hours ago, Macpherson said:

Hi, any advice is welcome as I reckon there's a lot to learn 👍

What do you want to know? I've just had a look and can see people selling chanterelle spawn but do not know anyone who has grown it. I would guess it is rather difficult to grow and could take years to fruit.

 

Something like oyster mushrooms are much easier and you can buy spawn growing on grain to inoculate all sorts of things. I had a good crop on a new toilet roll.

 

I would think inoculated dowels would be ideal for people here. As mentioned shiitake is easy, grown on oak. Oysters do well on beech. The logs need to be fresh from a living free so there's less competing fungi. Drill holes, insert dowels and seal with wax. Plenty of places selling what you need and offering advice. The logs do need somewhere damp for the mycelium to run and it could be over a year before you get anything. But a good sized log could fruit for a number of years.

Edited June 11, 2022 by Paul in the woods

[AHPP]

My lucky garden mushrooms. Any idea what they are?

[Macpherson]

2 hours ago, Paul in the woods said:

What do you want to know? I've just had a look and can see people selling chanterelle spawn but do not know anyone who has grown it. I would guess it is rather difficult to grow and could take years to fruit.

 

Something like oyster mushrooms are much easier and you can buy spawn growing on grain to inoculate all sorts of things. I had a good crop on a new toilet roll.

 

I would think inoculated dowels would be ideal for people here. As mentioned shiitake is easy, grown on oak. Oysters do well on beech. The logs need to be fresh from a living free so there's less competing fungi. Drill holes, insert dowels and seal with wax. Plenty of places selling what you need and offering advice. The logs do need somewhere damp for the mycelium to run and it could be over a year before you get anything. But a good sized log could fruit for a number of years.

 

Yep I've done a bit of reading and it's the dowels that I've been looking at I'll just need to get my hands on a decent fresh log or two.

Not much Oak or Beech readily available here unless a tree comes down.. but I'll keep my eye out and the next bit I get my hands on won't go for firewood, no difficulty finding somewhere damp up here. 👍