Mushroom Growing on Emerald Aisle Farm

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There is so much to do to get ready this time of year.  I love it but find that projects line up without dead lines in sight!   

The picture above is copied from Fungi Perfecti.  I have always received my orders quickly and in excellent condition. 

I've been creating a King Stropharia mushroom patch.  I did not have hardwood chips on hand but have been breaking tiny dried maple twigs by hand.  It's time consuming but I know it will be worth it.  I divided the bag of spawn and have added soaked maple twigs to half indoors and the other half I planted outdoors.

I planted H.U.G. mushrooms over two short rows of potatoes.  

I tried both of these mushrooms last year and failed.  The reason for failure on both of them was lack of shade and moisture.   The things that I did different this time:  1. I covered the H.U.G. with straw and soaked it thoroughly.  2. I used one of my raised boxes for the King Stropharia and covered it with a piece of siding after soaking it with water.

Not only did the morel spore I bought from Fungi Perfecti net me a morel, the patch I've been nurturing with scraps from cleaning wild morels grew at least four large morels last year.  I've got my eye on that patch already but nothing is showing yet.  It is too early.

When I purchased the morel spore, I followed the instructions and waited patiently for about 3 years.   A morel popped up more than 50 feet from where I put the spore but it was obviously the kind advertised, not the native tiny little dark ones I find sometimes.  There was just the one.

I purchased shitake spawn and plugged a lot of alder logs.  I laid straw over a patch of my forest and stacked the logs around.  Some kind of predator, maybe ants, have taken the spore away two years in a row.   But I used this same area to drop all scraps from wild morels I brought back from Eastern WA.  Some I just tossed out while others I created a slurry and poured it it directly on the decomposing straw when I saw mycelium growth in the water.  I did not see a single shitake but in the straw I saw the largest morels I've ever picked here in the Puget Sound.

I have used this same straw covered area to toss the scraps from my chantrelles.  Every time I rehydrate my home dried mushrooms I save the water a few days and toss it into the straw area too.  If it works to grow chantrelles in that area I will be out of control with joy.