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Something I always fancied but never done is growing my own mushrooms. But I've alawys though the kits were too exspensive. Is it possible to save the spores off one batch of shrooms to grow the next? If so it might be more worthwhile to invest in a kit.

Never done it myself, but apparently it is possible. You can't see the spores, though, so you have to do a spore print (put a mushroom cap spore-side-down on a sheet of paper and wait for a day or two). Then you cut up and plant the paper.

I think making up your own compost (loads of advice on the net) and using a few freshly-picked mushrooms as spore sources may be loads cheaper than buying a kit. Best of British!

Mike

Ok, I know I'm being thick but how do you know when it has spores - presumably not all have spores all the time... or do they? I've just sent for a kit from Robert Dyas - very cheap so I'm not holding out too much hope for success (but it was cheap enough to fail ) but if I could keep that going it would be great.

If you want to grow some mushrooms on the cheap ,as it were,think about buying a load of spent mushroom compost and stick it in a suitable crate (etc) under the greenhouse staging.When I've done this,6 or 7 times out of 10 you get a crop of mushrooms.If you fail you've still got some decent compost.

Could be shot down in flames here - we need the fun guys to be with. But I think that, as any fungus fruiting body doesn't last for very long, putting a fresh cap on top of paper will give you a spore print within a day or two - it's just the way of being a fruiting body. And I think that mushroom spore is (are?) brown, so you should be able to see it quite plainly as a brown stain on the paper.

I assume. I hope

Mike

One of my mushroom-growing books suggested soaking the mature mushrooms in a mixture of warm (not hot) water and molasses, then spraying the liquid where you want mushrooms to grow. Unfortunately that book is in storage right now so I can't give you more exact details.

I think there is a little more to it.
different types of fungi, need different types of rotting wood to nurish them.
If you know what mushroom you are trying to propagate,
search, read, ask...what type of wood it needs,
then aquire some wood chips and bury them with the collected spores.

The only one I know is Morels...they need rotting elm wood.

I have two huge mushroom growing manuals as PDF one on shitake one on field or generic, i don't remember. Anyone who wants them send me an email, pref. Gmail with a fair whack of storage space and i'll try send them out to you.

I would like to see thoose mushroom growing manuals FTB. My email is youwerentinnam@hotmail.com

cheers

Im giving it a go folks, its a 29,000 KB zip file with the 2 books - we'll see

OK I cant find an email server big enough to handle the files as attachments.
You will have to spend some time with a decent broardband connection here:
Oyster Cultivation Handbook (29.97 MB PDF): http://www.mediafire.com/?2wfs4ccg49d39ca
Shiitake Cultivation Handbook (34.88MB): http://www.mediafire.com/?x7z1341gpv7fzjm

Thanks for those Jed, look very interesting. Reading for a long dark evening methinks