Mushrooms!!

[opiate69]

Mrs Opiate and I went to the local mushroom festival last weekend... very fun event.. anyway, I picked up a kit of oyster mushrooms, which should be fruiting in the next week or two. Also picked up some shiitake plugs which I used to seed a cherry tree log. Won`t see anything edible for at least a year there though. A good friend of mine is also a very experienced mushroom hunter and I`m going to start going picking with him this fall... anyone else into growing delectable fungi??

[Curmudgeoness]

1. I have never been successful in growing them,

but I love going mushroom hunting. My father did this all the time, and I cannot believe that I never went out to learn with him. I had to start from scratch finding my spots and learning what to pick and what to leave.

If you choose to learn wild mushroom hunting, get a good book, learn how to do spore prints for identifications, and the first thing that I learned----memorize the "deadly" mushrooms, and don't even pick a mushroom that could even be close to them. There are only a few deadly ones, and if there is a look-alike that is good to eat, I still avoid it until I learn to be 100% sure.

Good luck with the cultivars.

[opiate69]

2. Definitely...

My friend with whon I'm going has over 20 years experience, so he's going to help me figure out the no-nos. Also, just picked up a field guide to wild edible plants of Western Washington, and have my eye on a very good pocket guide (with full color pictures) of our local fungi. Hoping to eventually get to where we can find some Oregon/Washington truffles as well!

[Whisp]

3. used to pick morels with my parents

My ma would make this awesome mushroom gravy with them - thick and mushroomy and garlicly. It was wonderful - I've not had morels in years and years and no mushroom can live up to the memories I have of them.

[opiate69]

4. Yum!! That is one of the varities that grows around here too!

Morels, chantrelles, lobster mushrooms, chicken of the woods, oyster, shiitake.... Mmmmm...

[sinkingfeeling]

5. I don't grow them, but will pick morels and puffballs when I see them.

[Denninmi]

6. I think I've posted before about this.

I've tried various of the spawn kits from Fungi Perfecti. I had really good luck with the Garden Giant Stropharia and the shitakes, useful quantities for a number of years. I also had good luck growing the shaggy manes, but finally gave up eating them last year because I could NEVER get the sand and grit out of them, no matter how hard I tried, I actually think in my sandy soil they kind of absorb sand particles as they grow and encapsulate them right in the flesh.

I had moderate to no success with some of the others, oysters, hen of the woods, sulfur shelf, lions mane.

Fun project to experiment with.

[opiate69]

7. Ahh.. Fungi Perfecti...

I auditioned a drummer once who was the IT guy for that site. Always wanted to buy from them , but they don`t do the farmers market or the festivals... picked mine up from these guys:
http://promushrooms.com/

[fasttense]

8. I have been growing mushrooms in my basement for about a year and a half now.

I sell them at the local farmer's market. I had great success with oyster mushrooms but the competition kept driving down the prices and I could no longer afford to grow them at the price they sold at. I tried growing outdoors initially. I had some Morels but the deer ate them. My King Stropharia all got dug up by the chickens. So, I went exclusively to indoor growing.

So, now I'm growing ABM and Straw mushrooms. The ABM are real slow growers but the paddy straw mushrooms compensate by being real fast growers. Both like it hot so I keep a heater and humidifier in a 8x10 greenhouse in my basement. The greenhouse is pretty full now, so I may get another one and do some cooler temperature mushrooms.

Mushroom growing is not for the faint of heart. It can be real difficult to get the right spawn, substrate and temperature. But if you persist, eventually you get a knack for it.

Be careful about picking wild. Even the most experienced mushroom hunter can make a mistake. There are so many look alikes that are dangerous even Morel and paddy straw look alikes have fooled long time hunters.

[opiate69]

9. For the time being, we rent so I only have an indoor kit....

well that and the shiitake plugs which are now planted in a cherry tree branch in my back yard.. if we ever can actually buy a place though, I intend to try some from "scratch" so to speak..

[fasttense]

10. That's how I started.

With a kit at first and slowly evolved from there.

I never tried growing on logs and stumps, it just looked like too much work for me (carrying logs, cutting wood and finding hardwood stumps). But a lot of people like it and are very successful with it.

You will find that those home grown mushrooms are so very delicate and delicious. So much better than what you can buy. Enjoy.