Urban Homesteading: Mushroom Growing Tips and Tricks Part 1

About a year ago my husband Jeremy picked up a mushroom bug – not a sickness, (though sometimes I’m not so sure about that) but a deep desire to grow mushrooms. We began with a starter kit ordered from Fungi Perfecti. The block of mushroom spawn-laced sawdust looked like a giant marshmallow sitting in our living room. We kept it carefully watered and out of direct sunlight and after a couple weeks we had our own home-grown Shiitake mushrooms.

Mightily encouraged, Jeremy bought more mushroom spawn and a bale of straw. His next project was to spread the spawn throughout the straw, stuff it in bags, and then the mushrooms would grow out of holes we cut in the plastic. The growing medium (straw) had to be sterilized so Jeremy proceeded to cut up the hay into little pieces and then boil it, batch by batch, in a huge pot on the range. There was straw all over the living room and kitchen by the end of that step.

Then we needed a really large container to mix the hay and mushroom spawn.

Of course: the bathtub! The bathtub registered its complaint by clogging and backing up. Remember everyone, if you mix vast quantities of hay in your bathtub, make sure to put a screen in the drain to keep the hay from filling up the pipes!

Again we babysat the bags of straw, keeping them warm and moist and out of direct sunlight. Alas, this experiment did not go so well. After weeks and weeks we could tell something was growing, but it wasn’t Shiitake mushrooms.

A couple mushrooms popped out, but they looked like they might be poisonous – or at least not very tasty. But nothing is wasted around here: those bags of supposed-mushrooms and straw went out to liven things up in our compost bins.

Aimee McAdams grew up in the Northwest and now lives in the fair city of Minneapolis. From building raised beds and root cellars to keeping chickens and making preserves, Aimee and her husband Jeremy are experimenting with all things urban homesteading. She writes the blog Adventures in Urban Homesteading. Contact her at aimee.mcadams@yahoo.com.

Related posts:

1. Urban Homesteading: Mushroom Growing Tips and Tricks Part 2
2. Urban Homesteading: Mushroom Growing Tips and Tricks Part 3
3. Urban Homesteading: Tips and Tricks to Building a Root Cellar

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