-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 3
Growing_Mushrooms
Growing edible mushrooms is as two part process. First is growing the mushroom mycelium, then there is the fruiting process (producing the part you eat). There are a lot of instructions on YouTube, and a number of good books, so I will be brief here. What I am doing is not 'standard', but it works for me as a small scale process. I follow the same steps, but use smaller quantities and containers.
To get started you need mushroom spawn. The easiest way is to buy a DIY kit, I found a box of oyster mushrooms on sale for $10 at Target. There are also commercial sources on the web that will sell larger quantities. Another way to get started is go to a farmer's market, or someplace that sells gourmet mushrooms, and buy a handful. Chop them up and they will start multiplying.
Check the web for growing mushrooms on used coffee grounds. That's right, Folgers, Starbucks or your favorite brand of coffee. You can use your own coffee, or take a 5 gallon bucket to your favorite coffee store and beg them to save you some grounds. You want to use this fresh (when it is the most sterile). The other thing you need is saw dust. The easiest way to get this is buy a bag of stove wood pellets at the hardware store (this may be seasonal). The process of making the pellets sterilizes the wood, and the expand back into saw-dust with some hot water. Mix 4 cups of coffee with 1 cup pellets and add one cup of hot water. Put this in a large (2 quart) plastic food storage container and microwave for 3 minutes. When this cools, mix in one cup of mushroom spawn (I do this in a large bowl that has been sanitized with a light spray of alcohol). Close up the container and put it in a dark location for a couple of weeks. Being closed up they will have high co2 and should not get contaminated with bacteria and other fungus. Assuming there is no contamination, it should be almost a white block of mushroom mycelium. Now it is time to start fruiting!
Fruiting requires high humidity and low CO2 - this is the job of the Shroom Farm. Remove the lid from a container and scrape up the surface to encourage new growth. I will dig out about 1/2 of the top layer, and use that spawn to start a new batch of spawn. That should be about one cup, which will start one new container. You want about a 1:10 ration of spawn to coffee/sawdust. In a couple of days the surface should start 'pinning' and producing mushrooms.
Google "growing mushrooms on coffee" for lots of resources
Two of my favorite websites are:
2018/05/31 webbhm