Growing Mushrooms

These have been popping up all over the garden.

  I thought they might want some friends so I ordered some mushroom spawn

Mushroom spawn from Field to Forest Products,  5.5lbs Wine Cap Sawdust and 4lbs Italian Oyster Sawdust.  It cost $65 total, $48 for the spawn and $18 for shipping

Oyster Spawn

Gloves and goggles

Hydrated Lime is pH 12 (strong base) and can be used to pasteurize straw substrate with out heating.  Hydrated lime is very basic so wear eye protection and gloves to protect your skin, it will dry out your skin and make it irritable and burn the shit out of your eyes, so please use protection.

Other ways to pasteurize are heat, steam, bleach, borax, hydrogen peroxide, detergents and on and on

Containers for soaking straw and wood chips

Add lime first then water at a ratio of 33g lime per one gallon water or 4lbs per 55gal

Add water until container is 3/4 way full and stir until lime is dissolved into solution

Add substrate to containers of lime solution and let soak for 24hrs

Substrate after 24hrs of soaking 

Remove the substrate and dry on a screen until substrate releases only one or two drops of water when squeezing it.  In this case, one hour

Oyster spawn before mixing into straw

Spawn mixed into straw at a ratio of 4 lbs spawn per straw bale

Straw mixed with spawn packed tightly in to bags with hole poked in them to allow the fungi to breath.  Fill the bag 3/4 way full, tie the bag closed and labeled it takes about 2 weeks for the bags to fully colonize at 75 degree Fahrenheit and 90% humidity

Bags ready to be hung

5.5 lbs Wine cap Spawn on Sawdust

Dug down in the wood chips about 6 inches or until the chips were mostly moist then spread spawn in the bed.  An area of 20 sqft. received 2lbs of Wine cap spawn.  

After on layer of spawn, two inches if chips were added and another layer of spawn on top of those. Finally covering with a layer of chips 6 inches tall and watering in thoroughly.

Water the mushroom bed every few days depending on your weather