The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: chriso on April 11, 2010, 08:58:19 pm
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Can/does anyone recommend mushroom kits? The last one I tried did not seem to produce much but I'm tempted to give it another go but maybe need advice on how to keep them.
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I have had several, only had success with two. Those two times we were flooded with mushrooms then nothing. I have seen on shows where you can build mushroom poles, they seem to be more successfull.
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I ordered two kits recently from Dobies website - one shittake and the other - I can't remember. They are infiltrated plugs that you tap into a hole made with a size 10 drill bit. Then you have to wrap them in a black bin liner for 5 - 10 months and then apparently they crop for 4 - 5 years.
The problem I found was that it required a fresh (less than three weeks old) log of deciduous wood. Well - I'm not going to be chopping any wood down at this time of the year now the buds are swelling and all that.....
It says on the packet that they can be kept in the fridge until December so that's where they'll stay until coppicing starts again in November but I did take issue with Dobies that there was no information about the requirement for fresh deciduous wood logs on the website or in the catalogue as that would have made me reconsider my purchase and wait until coppicing time.... but I expect they know that javascript:void(0);
I was thinking of shoving a load of spawn into the compost dalek once it's full. Anybody else done that?
Susanna
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you could put spawn into a clean straw bale after giving it a good soak !!! You can also use sawdust bales , as long as they are of untreated wood . They work perfectly OK.
There will always be some fresh branches that have been chopped off somewhere , phone a local tree surgeon , they will have tons of it. The reason you need fresh wood is it may get infected with other types of fungi if it is old stuff ...MAY !!! I used an old log that had been cut down at least 2 years , just to see what happened ....it worked fine . Grew perfect Shittake mushies.
You can also cut plugs from your stock logs once the fungi has spread throughout the log , and use those plugs to inoculate new logs .....thats how they get the ones you buy !!!
cheers
Russ
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Thanks Russ - very helpful. I'll phone around and see what I can get hold of.
Susanna
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I'm curious, why can't you put plugs into growing trees? you said the old logs may already have fungi in them does that prevent another species inhabitting the wood?
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I used one from Morrisons last year. The mushrooms were lovely (very mushroomy surprisingly enough!) but I am not doing it again as it worked out much more expensive than buying them ... I only got one crop out of it.