Mushrooms

Gardening by the Yard : Episode GBY-303 -- More Projects »

Growing culinary mushrooms is easier than you think. One of these blocks can yield up to five harvests.

Mushrooms' unique combination of flavor and texture makes them irresistible, no matter how you cook them or what you cook them with. Gardening by the Yard host Paul James weighs in with some good advice:

First, a caution: unless you are adequately trained, do not eat wild mushrooms. Certain species can kill you.

Paul Stamets is a world-renowned authority and expert on the cultivation of mushrooms. On the cutting edge of mushroom research, Stamets is the founder and president of Fungi Perfecti, a mail-order source of mushrooms and mushroom-growing supplies in Olympia, Washington.

Growing mushrooms indoors is easy for most people because each mushroom Stamets sells comes with a humidity tent that keeps the moisture inside. Mushrooms are 90 percent water, so they need a great deal of moisture.

Only one mushroom grows in the dark: the common button mushroom that you find in the grocery store. All other mushrooms in nature are photosensitive; they don't have chlorophyll (and thus don't turn green), but they grow towards light.

Figure A

Figure B

It's surprisingly easy to grow mushrooms indoors. When you order a mushroom kit by mail, you'll receive instructions, a humidity tent, and the mushrooms themselves, which may be growing in a substrate of hardwood chips and oat bran. Remove the block of substrate from its plastic wrap (figure A) and put the humidity tent over the block (figure B). Mist several times a day to maintain a high level of humidity inside the tent.

Figure C

Figure D

As to light: if it's bright enough to read the instructions, there's enough light for mushrooms. In as few as three days, small white blisters will begin to emerge (figure C). Each of these will become a mushroom. In another week or so, you should have mushrooms ready to harvest (figure D). In some cases, you'll wind up with a lot of little mushrooms, in other cases, you'll get fewer but larger mushrooms. In either case, you'll get the same yield per block- -two to three pounds of mushrooms.

After harvest, let the block dry out for a few days. After a week or so, dunk the block in water; you might want to use a brick or rock to keep the block submerged. Remove the block from the water, put the humidity tent back on, continue misting regularly, and in seven days, a second crop of mushrooms will be ready to harvest.

A total of five harvests can probably be extracted from your block, which will steadily shrink until it's the size of your fist. When the block is completely spent, simply toss it in your compost pile.

Figure E

You can also grow mushrooms outdoors, although it's more of a hit-and-miss proposition. It may take months, even a year or more before you see a harvest. Nonetheless, you can inoculate your garden beds, compost pile and even logs in the yard with mushroom spores. All you have to do is drill holes in oak logs, stuff a plug into each hole (figure E), keep the logs well watered, and in time, with any luck, you'll have plenty of mushrooms. You can grow nearly as many mushroom varieties outdoors as in, including some of the best-tasting. Benign neglect is probably the best strategy for growing mushrooms outdoors: plant and water them initially, then forget about them for six months to a year. At that time, and when the temperatures recommended for that species start occurring outdoors, you'll want to help them along by providing more water.

In terms of sheer beauty, James's favorite mushroom is Ganoderma lucidum, which is the Latin name for Reishi or Ling zhi. It's known by many people in America as the wood conk. Shiitake is his favorite culinary mushroom because it has such a wide spectrum of flavors. Maitake is his favorite medicinal mushroom.

Figure F

The portabello is simply a white button mushroom that's been allowed to develop to maturity (figure F) and that commands a much higher price at the store.

Resources
mushroom kits
Fungi Perfecti
PO Box 7634
Olympia, WA 98507
USA
Phone: 360-426-9292
Toll Free Phone: 800-780-9126
Fax: 360-426-9377
Email: mycomedia@aol.com
URL: www.fungi.com
Guests
Paul Stamets
Mycologist
Owner, Fungi Perfecti
PO Box 7634
Olympia, WA 98507
Phone: 360-426-9292
Toll-free: 800-780-9126
Fax: 360-426-9377
E-mail: mycomedia@aol.com
Website: www.fungi.com
Also in this Episode

Gardening by the Yard : Episode GBY-303
•	Mushrooms
•	Heat Seekers
•	Bamboozled
•	Meat Eaters

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