Use kits to grow your own mushrooms

It could very well be the ugliest Christmas present you will ever give anyone. But beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and the lessons this ugly lump of sawdust can teach, and the tasty gourmet mushrooms it will produce, will quickly win you over.

Gourmet mushroom growing kits have become quite popular with the rise in interest of gourmet food in the past decade. People find the idea of growing their own fresh shiitakes, oyster, pearl and lion’s mane fascinating. Who wouldn’t when the grocery stores want several dollars a pound for them?

For Paul Stamets, founder and research director for Fungi Perfecti of Olympia, growing mushrooms is a way to celebrate one of the Earth’s most powerful and ancient soil building processes. The mushrooms you pick off your “patch” are the fruiting bodies of a fungus made up of a mass of tiny white filaments called mycelium. In the wild, mycelium work their way through organic material in the soil helping to break it down into rich compost that feeds other plants and those that feed on them. Stamets said it may be one of the best ways to teach children about natural processes that we don’t normally see.

How to grow mushrooms from kits

Indoor growing kits contain a block of compressed sawdust that already has a mass of white or tan mycelium growing in and on it. The block is placed in indirect light at a room temperature of 55 to 70 degrees. The block will need to be covered with a perforated plastic bag to hold in the humidity and sprayed twice a day with nonchlorinated and nondistilled water. The chlorine can kill the mycelium and distilled water lacks some of the nutrients the mycelium need. Stamets said the best water to use is rainwater captured off your roof. Chlorinated tap water can be used if it is allowed to stand open to the air for a day to let the chlorine dissipate. Mushrooms should begin appearing in a few weeks and will continue for as long as two years.

Planting outdoors

Wait until spring and you can also grow gourmet mushrooms outdoors. Outdoor kits will grow shaggy mane, king stropharia, oyster, chicken-of-the-woods, morels and others. Outdoor kits come as small wooden dowels or plugs impregnated with mycelium. These plugs are either put in fresh wood chips or into holes drilled in logs. Aspen, cottonwood (poplar), alder and Douglas fir are most commonly used. Pine can only be used with certain types of fungi because it is an aromatic wood. The chips and logs need to be freshly cut because once they are colonized by one type of fungi, other types can’t grow there.

In our hot, dry climate, they need to be placed in a shady spot where they can get regular water through the summer and protected from the sun. Be patient; it may take several months to a year before you see mushrooms. They can then produce for several years.