I haven't yet, but for sure have wanted to for a while. There's a couple mushroom people on youtube that do some interesting and crazy outdoor mushroom growing.

Who did you order spawn from?

I had a co-worker that grew Oyster and Shiitake mushrooms and would sell them at the office. He retired a few years ago and how I miss those fresh shrooms!

I am looking forward to the upcoming Morel mushroom season. We will have a few days in the 70s next week with rain but I don't know if the soil temperatures are high enough yet. Usually the Morels show up about the time that the first flush of dandelions go to seed and thus far I've only seen a few dandelions blooming in very sunny locations. We'll be back into the 50s for highs late next week so the morel season may not start until later in April.

Greetings. Apologies for my long delay. i came across my own post while searching "mushrooms."

Update:on my outdoor mushroom attempt. I have a patch of Wine cap and several Shiitake logs that were prepped lst spring. Nothing, yet. But it can take a year for full mycelial colonization and fruiting. So, I'm still optimistic. But, I have gone ahead and embarked on an attempt at indoor mushroom growing. It's a labor intensive process, but a fun science experiment. I have purchased several species of liquid culture, and inoculatd jars of sterile nutrition-rich water to expand the volume of culture. I just finished sterilizing moistened grain for the next inoculation step. I'm using canning jars, rather than the common plastic bags that are typical in the industry. I'll try to remember to check back with any progress.

Martha

I went to a shitake growing seminar quite a few years ago and actually came away with a log with the shitake spore in it. I was all gung hoe and read up a bit on it. It was my understanding that the logs had to have a certain watering schedule in certain years, or something like that, and that it required a lot of water. And I didn’t have a good supply of oak. As for the shitake log, I threw it under my spruce grove and tortured it. I watered it off and on the first year and then ignored it. It did grow a couple of mushrooms

Update: My grain spawn did very well, except the shiitake, which weere both contaminated and grew mold. I have now mixed the grain spawn of King Oyster and Chestnut with mixed hardwoood sawdust and soy hulls for eventual growth of actual mushrooms. This should occur within a few weeks to a month. I also have Lion's Mane grain spawn that should be ready for next steps in another week or so.

Martha

Update! I have pinning (baby mushrooms) in my Lion's Mane and King Oyster tubs! I wish I could make my photos download.

Martha

Sometimes when my photos don’t download I have to make them smaller (large size rather than actual size) and then wait until the photo is perfectly clear and then hit submit…and it seems to work. Also, my photos always post sideways (ipad) so I have to edit them and rotate them (yeesh!) and then they come out in the correct orientation. That is really encouraging that you have results!

Just to nitpick.

"Mushrooms have long been a part of the human diet and used as both foods and medicine (3, 4). They are the fruiting bodies of filamentous fungi that grow above the ground (4, 5). From a culinary standpoint, they are considered as vegetables and have been informally categorized among the ‘white vegetables’ (6). The USDA’s MyPlate (ChooseMyPlate.gov) (7) considers mushrooms as part of other vegetables"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7869438/

Daninthedirt,

I don't understand "Just to nit pick." Do you disagree with something posted? I don't find anything in the links you provided that contradicts anything that has been posted in this thread. I am posting to the edible landscape forum, right?

Martha

Hey, chill, docmommich. I was just pointing out, with regard to your "I know they're not veggies", that they are in fact considered veggies by the NIH and USDA. Not a major point, and certainly not answering your important questions, which is why I call it nitpicking. By the way, you're posting to several forums, and my point is that "Vegetable Gardening" is an appropriate one.