mushrooms

[flaja]

In the Good Life episode in which the Goods try to get away for the weekend, allowing Jerry and Margo to look after the animals, Barbara planted mushrooms as if they were seeds. Was this something that was made up for TV or is there a type of mushroom that can be grown this way? Whatever mushroom it was, it certainly seems easier than drilling hole into oak logs and then waiting 2 years to get a crop of shitake or spending $30 for a button mushroom kit that has a limited lifespan.

[contadino]

In the agricultural shops here, mushroom kits are next to the seed racks in the shop. They're pretty small packages that contain (I think) the substrate with spores or fibres in it. If I understand it correctly, you layer the substrate on top of other stuff and leave in a warm damp place. You can keep the kits going by adding more of the substrate but from the limited research I've done, you have to match the substrate pretty closely.

I haven't tried it yet but will be doing so if it ever starts to warm up. The kits are EUR 5 each, which is quite a step up from packets of seeds for EUR 0.50.

[flaja]

In the agricultural shops here, mushroom kits are next to the seed racks in the shop. They're pretty small packages that contain (I think) the substrate with spores or fibres in it. If I understand it correctly, you layer the substrate on top of other stuff and leave in a warm damp place. You can keep the kits going by adding more of the substrate but from the limited research I've done, you have to match the substrate pretty closely.

I haven't tried it yet but will be doing so if it ever starts to warm up. The kits are EUR 5 each, which is quite a step up from packets of seeds for EUR 0.50.

Unfortunately in the U.S. you can only get mushroom kits and supplies via mail order.

[the.fee.fairy]

i bought dry spawn. its mushroom spores impregnated into wheat seeds. The wheat seeds are dried and roasted so they won't grow.

Therefore, yes, you can sow mushrooms like seeds, but it has to be on prepared compost -usually rotted strawbale.

You can also get mushroom kits that have a bag of already rotted straw, and some compost with mushroom spawn in it.

Does anyone know how to make mushroom spawn/get/harvest it?

[flaja]

Does anyone know how to make mushroom spawn/get/harvest it?

There are people, who have products to sell you, that say you cannot make your own spawn because you have to have equipment to sterilize the spawn since any contamination with spawn from inedible mushrooms will supposedly reduce your harvest. What us work-a-day people need to find out is how to let the mushrooms produce their own spawn so you can get a continuous harvest by simply adding more compost.