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Got my mushrooms on the go today, we've got a lovely old pantry thats ideal for the conditions needed, mind you jane eats them like there going out of fashion then again i prefer them raw mmmmm loking forward to eating them

Yum, cheddar and raw mushroom sandwiches, an old favourite

Happy New Year

What are you using OTM? and where did you buy the spore please? I grew button mushrooms back in the 70s under the stairs and they were very successful, but fancy doing something different now - also I don't have an understairs cupboard, so they'd have to be in the cold area of the gym or the garage.

I used to buy them box kits from the DIY stores. Always were succesful though after about four crops they got a bit sparce and straggly. The place I have now has a 3/4 acre field and it was used for horses recently for a few years. I hope to find wild mushrooms late summer.

This one was a box kit, but i think they sold me a dud i did everything i was supposed to do and still no mushrooms................ i'm really annoyed it was my last few quid at the time

Apparently, the mushrooms that you pick in the fields are from spores that can be thousands of years old. We go out with people that have lived here all their lives, far to dodgy for me to make the decisions, but they taste great and by the time you are fed up eating them, they go out of season and something else comes in, it's the way it is. Am I rambling? right that's the last post, too much home made wine, lousy wine.......

When I first moved here I went to a local mushroom farm for some spent compose with the idea of lighting the soil in the polytunnel however it was not like I expected it was like packs of horse manure with a layer of soil on top. I took these and buried them in the tunnel 3 weeks later i couldn't move for mushrooms. These were frozen and used at most meals being cooked every way possible. Great bonus. And the crops grown on them were fabulous. (Must go and get some again.)

old tree man wrote:This one was a box kit, but i think they sold me a dud i did everything i was supposed to do and still no mushrooms................ i'm really annoyed it was my last few quid at the time

I have heard of the box kits going wrong and people tell me it's usually because the big retailers don't store them at the right temp and the spores die off and the poor customer is buying a box of compost.

Dr.Syn wrote:When I first moved here I went to a local mushroom farm for some spent compose with the idea of lighting the soil in the polytunnel however it was not like I expected it was like packs of horse manure with a layer of soil on top. I took these and buried them in the tunnel 3 weeks later i couldn't move for mushrooms. These were frozen and used at most meals being cooked every way possible. Great bonus. And the crops grown on them were fabulous. (Must go and get some again.)

At the Wallasey end of the Mersey Tunnel in England there's a roundabout and on one side every year there grows some lovely big mushrooms as big as dinner plates. THey come up every year and I think when they made the roundabout in the 70s they must have brought soil from a horse field or something. First I thought they were toadstools but I know a fella who braves the traffic to harvest them. Also as you go into the tunnel and look up there is an embankment with a stray apple tree which every years drops pounds of eating apples. Forager's paradise if you don't get run over getting mushroom or fall eighty foot into the traffic getting apples!

hi Bill, that's my home town your referring to . It felt really weird. I am not sure the tunnel was prettied up with roundabouts and I don't go back much anymore but it was certainly there. I have a sister who still lives in Moreton and a brother who only went as far as Chester but we other three went to Wales (south) Scotland (Granton on Spey) and me Tewkesbury.
Oh and if anyone want any horse s**t locally there's stacks of it here.

Hi small world! The roundabout is not a proper roundabout more like a hamburger because it has no centre as the tunnel approach road runs through it. It was put in at the same time as the tunnel to take the diverted Gorsey Lane over the tunnel road and down through what was Mckenna's field. The mushrooms live on the dock side of the roundabout and the apple tree is on the Geneva Road side of the tunnel where there would have been houses once.

Henwoman wrote:What are you using OTM? and where did you buy the spore please?

I just bought some button mushroom spores from Wilkinsons. Being totally new to mushroom growing (and most other growing to be fair) I have no idea how successful this will be. I'll let you know in a month or so!!

I notice that shop is doing an awful lot of product range for the home grower. Seen all sorts of potatoes and onions and other stuff.

Yes, I popped in yesterday for a 'browse' and ended up with an armful of stuff including Anya potatoes and shallots. Very exciting! Absolute bargains too, which is great for a novice like me... Not sure if there's a downside to them being so cheap though? Last year I was recommended Arran Pilot potatoes from WIlkinsons. I didn't have a great deal of success but I put that down to my ignorance more than anything (at one point I was proudly harvesting the seed potatoes. Doh.) I've bought them again this year to see if they do any better - the ones that I actually allowed to grow were lovely. Just didn't get very many.

Haha! I was the same! I only went in to get cat biscuits seen all the growing stuff and had to stop myself mainly because I wont be in a position to plant anything this year as I haven't moved over properly yet, have loads to do to the cottage first and then think about cultivating the land! So my first planting hopefully will be early next year unless I buyer for the cottage in England this summer which I doubt. The cottage here is an end terrace with just a court yard so everything is in pots and containers. Got strawberries, raspberries, grapes, potatoes, apples and a pear tree that does nothing. Might try the button mushrooms though!