Anyone grow their own mushrooms? Or forage them?

I've always found the idea of tossing an inoculated log outside to be neat. I'm going to give it a go this year. I'm thinking shiitake. I have a very shady section of my yard where I basically can't grow anything so it seems like a perfect spot for mushrooms. The moss grows wild there.

Buying an inoculated log is probably the pricier way to go about it, but sometimes it's nice to be lazy.

We forage here, but friends of mine tried inoculating logs one year - I got tossed a log which is still in the garden... unfortunately I never did get any shitake from it. I think they are not well suited to my climate, too tender.
Last fall we did a hike with some mushroom farmers around their place, to ID for them the edible wild ones on their property. In return she gave us several bags of reishi growing in chips. Mine are not finished yet, still developing the shiny cap.

[mention]Bower[/mention], while shopping around for shiitake logs I found that there seem to be different varieties for different climates. Warm range, cold range, and wide range. I'm going to try my luck with wide range and see how it goes. I'm also looking at Chicken of the Woods and Lion's Mane. I tend to go overboard with new things though. Maybe I should just stick to one!

I liked the Lion Mane. I got a kit from North Spore and had good success with it. I currently have it resting before trying for a second flush. I should mention this was my first kit ever and was one of the small spray and grow kits. I am thinking of getting another one... AND my friend has a shitake log coming it should be here by this time next week.
Planned for this spring- warm blue oyster mushrooms in a bucket on aspen shavings,(spawn ordered, bucket, aspen, etc that I need already here) I still need to order some grain spawn for wine caps to go in my garden beds and pathways. Those and my oysters can grow on straw or the aspen I can find for mulch AND the wine caps make tomatoes grow even better. Really looking forward to seeing that. Plus of course both the oyster mushrooms and the wine caps break down the mulch much faster turning it into nice crumbly soil improvements...

I have observed that mushrooms only come out after a rain where I live but don't come out after watering with city water.
Obviously it must be the treated water..

wykvlvr wrote: ↑Tue Mar 09, 2021 3:58 pm I still need to order some grain spawn for wine caps to go in my garden beds and pathways. Those and my oysters can grow on straw or the aspen I can find for mulch AND the wine caps make tomatoes grow even better. Really looking forward to seeing that. Plus of course both the oyster mushrooms and the wine caps break down the mulch much faster turning it into nice crumbly soil improvements...

Very cool! Can you tell me more about this? I went on a youtube goose hunt but seems like most people make separate beds for their mushrooms and do a layering method of straw or wood chip and spawn with multiple layers. Is this basically what you're going to do in your tomato beds? The vids also seemed to stress keeping the planting site out of the sun. I suppose tomatoes would probably shade them though in your scenario.

Nope they will be right in the garden growing among the plants. I got idea from a link in an email from Northspore. It is a video they did of growing mushrooms in the garden.
Then I clicked on a few others that showed up in the side bar. I also asked questions in other forums that had a Fungi section and in a Facebook group on growing mushrooms.
The upshot is you can grow mushrooms in the mulch you are using in the garden. Both paths and beds can be inoculated with mushroom spawn. Oyster mushrooms and Wine Caps are the most commonly recommended species as they can grow on almost anything. The benefit of growing them IN the garden bed is they break down the mulch and turn it into yummy soil additives throughout the season. In the case of the wine caps and tomatoes, the tomatoes provide shade for the mushrooms and the mushrooms break down the straw constantly making new nutrients available. The Wine Cap mycelium will actually wrap around the roots in an almost symbiotic relationship giving you healthier tomatoes. Just one more amazing thing about how plants/fungi interact.

[mention]wykvlvr[/mention] , thanks for the video! That helped. Well now I want to do multiple mushroom projects!

LOL yep know the feeling.
Those little spray and grow kits are designed to help you succeed as most of the companies think of them as a "gateway drug" You either get totally hooked or decide it is too fiddly for you. The kit I got was around $30, the spawn I got for the bucket was around the same price and there is enough for two 5 gallon buckets. If those work (we normally have low humidity so it may need a humidity bag) I will feel a bit better about the wine caps and oysters in the garden.
But it is still winter here so I am also trying to talk myself out of some of the other fun looking things like a paper cat litter & guinea pig food "log" to grow mushrooms on, or trying some grain in a canning jar or a clear bin filled with cardboard, used coffee grinds and maybe a touch of grain or straw....so many fun and interesting looking projects I can do inside.

Sterilized masters mix is the way to go for the wood loving species. It's a mix of hardwood fuel pellets, soy hulls and water. It's easy and simple to make and only costs me about .35¢ to make a 5 lb. fruiting block of substrate. A block will typically produce 2 1/2 - 3 lbs of mushrooms. I inoculate the blocks with grainspawn made with liquid culture. A few CC's of liquid culture would basically make an infinite amount of grainspawn if wanted.

A recent blue oyster grow.

[mention]Uncle_Feist[/mention] that is so cool! I have never eaten homegrown mushrooms. They look delicious.
The way [mention]Glitch[/mention] spells shiitake with two "i"s is correct. Just bothers me a bit when spelled with one i, as it is unappetizing besides being wrong

[mention]Uncle_Feist[/mention], those are some great photos! Seems like you are doing this inside. I am banned from more weird indoor projects... Seems like a glass cabinet? I still have a lot to learn. Next on the list, liquid cultures.

Glitch wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 12:26 pm @Uncle_Feist, those are some great photos! Seems like you are doing this inside. I am banned from more weird indoor projects... Seems like a glass cabinet? I still have a lot to learn. Next on the list, liquid cultures.

In a garage with a small humidity chamber for fruiting the blocks.

Thanks!

peebee wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 12:11 pm @Uncle_Feist that is so cool! I have never eaten homegrown mushrooms. They look delicious.
The way @Glitch spells shiitake with two "i"s is correct. Just bothers me a bit when spelled with one i, as it is unappetizing besides being wrong

oops I didn't realize my keyboard left out the second i. When I start typing sometimes I get too fast and it thinks it is a double key stroke... should have double checked.
Grin we got Margaret's Shiitake kit yesterday and today her friend brought in some well water to use on it. When she called this morning she was rereading the instructions before she got it started. Nice project for our weather... not bad here yet but they are calling for at least 2 feet of snow by the end of Monday... Which explains why indoor projects are my gardening of choice right now.

I just yesterday order small packs of shiitake plugs and wine cap spawn. I don't expect to be successful, but I'll try it out. I have some unusable oak timber of the first, and will spread the second under the straw cover of my tomato bad. I just hope fungicides I use will not harm them.

I live right next to Far West Fungi and I want to grow one of their pink oyster logs sometime. Maybe lion's mane. Trying to convince my husband is another story.

Finally arrived.

It's been a really long time ago, but useta be... I had a lot of colonies of psilocybe cubensis from the horse poop...
saw a couple last month that looked the part... except... the gills and ring were white instead of dark...

I have colonies of parasol mushrooms that grow all through the garden each summer... those are some good eating...

Unfortunately, it's too dry here for a mushroom kit, and... finding morels here is next to impossible... at my old garden, I had some areas that were fairly dependable, but lately, finding a few one year doesn't mean that I'll ever see them return to that location...

I know it is old, but, worth, I'm thinking mushrooms sprout due to the humidity when it rains. May not just be your treated water. Now if you water right after it rains and it makes a negative space, then yeah that's antifungal water.



I may have to try this. Mushrooms. Been reading about it for a bit. Mostly the PSU extension page on industrial farming them. But it gives a base to work from.

My grandma used to have a good patch of Lion's Manes, so I am told. My dad brought some back from the farm and tried to grow them in the basement, but something that looked like toadstools grew instead. So they tossed it. This would have been in the 70s.

It sounds like the expensive part is buying the spawn?
@Uncle_Feist

A few CC's of liquid culture would basically make an infinite amount of grainspawn if wanted.

Infinite amount...I like that, much more than these $30 kits, but how long does it keep? I read about 3 months, refrigerated.

Could you give me a rundown on what all I would need to do this? Just hardwood pellet, soy hulls, liquid culture and grain for bloom, and glass case to control humidity/temp? I could heat but cooling would be harder. Where do you buy your culture?

Oh fellow mushroom growers, I'm so glad to have found you! I just got into growing these over the winter. What started with winning a lion's mane table top farm at auction has blossomed into a Martha tent and several sprouting blocks, including both lion's mane and shiitake. I'm planning to intercrop some almond agaricus and wine caps outdoors this year, and I've certainly learned my share of lessons the hard way! But I'm on the right track. My college mycology professor would be in stitches laughing, because I never was a huge fan of eating them. But times change and so can a mind or two.

This is my Martha tent. It's pretty gothic to maintain the humidity levels required for fruiting. I have both the duct fan and the ultrasonic humidifier on a timer. These are not difficult to build and I viewed the expense as an investment. Those are my own blocks, although to be fair the kits I've tried are a very good value. I just like fiddling.
These are my first shiitakes from my own block. I tried growing these on straw and got a few fruits but not enough to do it again. Garden and learn.

My fourth lion's mane is fruiting! My first just gave a second flush, #s 2 & 3 just gave and are giving their first. What I can't eat or trade can be dehydrated or made into tincture.
I wonder if we need a mushroom forum. These seem to be getting popular as an alternative for meat protein, for example.