THE QUEST FOR 'SHROOMS CONTINUES

A while ago I showed you the rather odd loaf-like object taking up space in my refrigerator. Well, I'm happy to report that I was able to free up that space in the fridge this weekend, as the mushroom spawn has been planted scattered strewn.

The process of growing these Wine Cap mushrooms is less than exciting, and since I've never done this before, I pretty much just followed the instructions that came with the spawn, which was mixed with sawdust. My five-pound bag was enough for a 50 square foot area so, because my spatial relationship skills are not great, I laid out the bed area with birch logs. There is absolutely no need to do this, other than to make sure you have about the right size area and I liked the idea of knowing where exactly to look for my 'shrooms.

Because there was some grass and weeds in the area, I laid down some sodden cardboard as a weed block. This wasn't in the instructions that came from Field and Forest, but I saw this method in a few videos I watched. Then I spread several inches of damp wood chips on top. I used chips from maple and ash trees we had taken down a couple months ago, but you could use purchased untreated wood chips if needed. The instructions said a variety of chip size is best, and that's certainly what I had in my pile.

Then I took the "loaf" of spawn out of the fridge and broke it up in the bag, then sprinkled it all over the wood chips, trying to broadcast it evenly. After that, it was a few more wood chips and some damp straw.

And that's it. All I have to do now is make sure that the area stays damp but not wet, especially through the hot bits of summer.

This is about as big of a garden experiment as I've ever undertaken. Of course there was the potato tower a few years ago, but let's hope the outcome is significantly better than that.

With any luck, by the end of summer I'll be feasting on my very own homegrown mushrooms.

Have you ever grown mushrooms. Tell me about it!

THERE'S A FUNGI IN MY FRIDGE

So this is in my fridge. In case you can't tell what that is, it's a 5.5-pound bag of slightly moldy-looking sawdust. Makes it all clear, right?

That's a bag of mushroom spawn in my fridge, complete with the directions on top of it because if I don't keep them in there I'm sure to lose them.

It's actually a bag of wine cap mushroom (Stropharia) spawn mixed with sawdust that I picked up over the weekend at the Wisconsin Garden Expo. A few weeks ago, on a dark winter weekend, I somewhat randomly decided that I'm going to grow mushrooms this year.

My interest in mushrooms actually started last spring when I was chatting with garden blogger friend Kenny Point from Veggie Gardening Tips as we passed the time waiting for our flights at the airport. Kenny loves to grow things just for the challenge of growing something different (he also got me hooked on growing culinary ginger and turmeric) and told me that I was crazy not to give mushroom growing a try because, he said, some varieties are dead simple to grow.

Later that spring I went to a talk on growing mushrooms, but that one was centered mostly on using inoculated wood plugs to "seed" logs and seemed to require a fair amount of waiting, something we all know I'm no good at (see name of blog), but I kept remembering that there was a variety Kenny told me was very simple to try. I recalled that a few weekends ago and decided I would officially give wine caps a try.

Here's why I picked that variety:

1. They can be grown in wood chips or straw.
2. If I plant them in spring I should have mushrooms by August.
3. The mushrooms are unique looking so even I should be able to identify them and not kill myself.

That last one sounds like a joke, but it's not. We have a pretty wooded lot and there are lots of mushrooms around. Some, I'm sure, are edible, but there are plenty that are absolutely not. I'm no mycologist, so I don't play around with taste testing things that might make me die. But wine caps are beautiful mushrooms with a lovely merlot-colored cap and gray gills that don't even look remotely like anything I've seen growing here. So I should be able to recognize them and be safe eating them.

Field and Forest photo

I bought the spawn—enough to cover a 50-square-foot bed—from Field and Forest Products, a mushroom supplier in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and found the staff to be just full of knowledge and more than happy to share. 

I'm still researching the more specific aspects of creating my wine cap bed, but I know where it's going to go: Behind the three big virburnums at the back of the garden in the back/side garden that help block our neighbor's house. That area gets filtered light in the morning and late in the day and does a great job growing creeping Charlie, which the folks at Field and Forest said is a good indication that the mushrooms will do well there. I'll lay down a three-inch bed of well moistened hardwood chips, spread the sawdust/spawn mixture over them and top it with wet straw. Then all I have to do is keep the bed moist but not wet this summer. 

So this will be my big gardening experiment for the summer. Of course I'll take you along on the journey. And don't worry ... I'll do all the taste testing.