The Valley, March 2011
15
The Mushroom Guy Tasty fungal morsels and other wild edibles. by Bob Sleigh
Love Mushrooms, but can’t get out to the woods?
Grow Your Own!
It won’t be long until Mother Nature warms up the ground in the Keystone State and once again starts the fungal life cycle for another mushroom year. For some of us, though, the mushroom harvest never ends. Nothing beats walking out
The beginning of my blue jean Oyster grow—blue jeans used as a substrate and spawn.
of the kitchen in the middle of winter and returning minutes later with the freshest and cleanest mushrooms you could ever find. No dirt, no insects, no concerns about the growing environment, because, after all, this growing environment is in a spare room in my house. Having been an avid gardener in my younger years, it was a natural progression for me to start growing mushrooms, a progression that has not been without its pitfalls and failures. As with any new hobby, there is a learning curve to overcome and experience to be gained along the way. Failures in mushroom cultivation can be many in the beginning even with the plethora of growing information available today. For those willing to persist, mushroom growing can be a very challenging yet healthful and
fascinating hobby. The easiest way to start growing mushrooms is to buy one of the readily-available kits being marketed today. Oyster mushrooms are, beyond a doubt, the easiest to grow at home and require little more than some light, some airflow and a little TLC. One of the most popular beginners kits is called a TP kit. The TP stands for toilet paper, yep, plain old unused toilet paper. Due to the fact that Oysters and many other edible mushrooms digest wood, anything made from wood can be used to grow them. The material used to grow the mushrooms on is called substrate and can be anything from newspapers and cardboard to straw and cottonseed hulls. If your goal is to grow mushrooms as cheaply as possible it should not be difficult to find free sources of substrate
beyond what you would be capable of growing in a typical home setup. To create spawn, a liquid culture of the intended mushroom is applied to grain that has been pressure cooked to kill any possible contaminants. The mushroom culture kit always starts with some specontains mycelium, which is the underground structure cies of Oyster mushroom (Pleuof the mushrooms. Think of rotus sp.) spawn from a reputable it as similar to the roots of a source. Oysters are very forgiving while at the same time producing tree. decent yields with minimal care. So, in a nutshell, we Next you will need some type have spawn, some type of substrate and a The same blue jean grow a short contime later with mycelium completely tainer to covering the blue jeans. grow in. right in your own neighborhood. HonBut all the substrate in the world estly for some won’t help if you don’t have any people I know, mushroom spawn to mix into it. that, and a Mushroom spawn is to one-page set mushroom growers very much of instructions what seeds are to gardeners, and has garnered ironically, mushroom spawn is amazing reusually made using grain. Millet, sults. rye, popcorn and even wild bird My basic Oyster mushrooms starting to fruit from the seed can be used very effectively recipe for a be- blue jean grow. to produce spawn in amounts far ginner’s grow of substrate to grow your mushrooms with. Remember the toilet paper? I won’t get into substrate details here since everyone has their favorite. I have even seen Pink Oyster mushrooms growing on an overstuffed chair and have grown my own on an old pair of blue jeans. Lastly you will need a container. Plastic bags, cardboard boxes, plastic jars, even five gallon buckets can be used effectively. If you want to see what is happening inside though you should stick to plastic jars or bags. OK already, let’s put this thing together. Take your TP roll and place it on a rack over the sink, boil a pot of water and soak the TP with it. Allow the TP to drain until cool. Take a half-gallon baggie and place the TP roll standing up inside the bag. Gently remove the cardboard tube and fill the remaining hole to the top with your spawn. Loosely roll the top of the
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