as a rule, all mushrooms contain some form of mycotoxin and all should be cooked or processed before consumption.
Even button type mushrooms. Before I rattle off a list of mushroom recipe ideas. What mushrooms have you seen in the grocery?
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Iāll take a picture next time iām in thereā¦i think its seasonal with the fresh stuff. There is a ton of selection of dried mushroomsā¦most seem to come out of Europe and China.
Can you give us an update on your mushroom projects?
Iām doing WineCaps in a wood chip pile now.
Iāve done Shiitakes for years on logs and this time Iām trying them in a bin of hard wood chips. According to Paul Stamets, the ratio of innoculant to substrate should be high enough so that the innoculant dominates the substrate to the near exclusion of the other potential contaminants. Hoping the Shiitakes will dominate in my little box.
I totally believe in doing something til you get it right. So what do you think the problem was, or, what would you differently?
Did the WineCaps do anything?
I do think it was my volume to inoculant ratio. All the bags show a good start before I left town, for two weeks.
I have had limited success raising mushrooms . I now just seed likely stumps with real mushroom trimmings or past prime mushrooms I find . Works on hen of the woods , oyster , chicken of the woods and even morel . I need to bring a piece of oyster log closer to the house where I can water it . Very dry here now .
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At this yearās local scion exchange, I happened across a booth staffed by folks from a mushroom club. I joined up and bought a bag of spawn from them and mixed it with some fresh wood chips outside a few months ago.
Four King Stropharia caps the size of baseballs just popped up a few days ago.
It couldnāt have been easier and Iām surprised at how well it worked. They taste just like tender asparagus, delicious!
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Iāve had them poping up for about 4 yrs. now from 1 bag of spawn. if you keep adding chips or straw , they keep coming up. also have blewits that come up around my compost pile in the fall. try stuffing and baking those big caps. theyre delicious!
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Do oysters overwinter for you?
yes. matter of fact i just picked a couple pounds of brown ones from maple logs i inoced 3tyrs ago. i then used the logs to make a raised bed. you donāt have to worry about moisture this way. i also have the blue and white ones in there. they usually flush in late summer and fall.
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I bought one of those Home Depot spawn in a cardboard box kits last summer. I got a flush off of it and then broke up the substrate and embedded pieces into a straw-bale.
I got a flush last fall and a couple mushrooms this spring as well.
Where is everyone getting their spawn from?
Scott
everything mushrooms, field and forest, mushroom mountain, take your pic. 
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This site popped up on my instagram this am. Thought it might be of interest. Its a āgourmetā mushroom growing company. They sell kits. Pricey but supposedly guaranteed.
Kiwi,
My name is Dan and Iāve been lurking here for a bit.
I grow mushrooms commercially. For a beginner, you really should buy grain or sawdust spawn from a mushroom farm. In general use sawdust spawn for innoculating outside beds. Using grain spawn is just a way to feed wildlife. I highly recommend field and forest in Wisconsin.
If using liquid culture and if you want to innoculate grain spawn, go to an animal feed supply and buy oats or rye. Basically get a 5 gallon bucket, dump some grain in, let it soak 24 hours. Use a second bucket and drill some holes in the bottom. Dump the grain and water in the other bucket and let it drain for an hour. Come back and scoop the grain inside a mushroom grow bag or jar.
Next once you pressure cook the grain, you need to innoculate it infront of a laminar flow hood or still air box. If you plan to do this often and you can drop $500-700 buy a 24x24 laminar hood. It makes life so much easier.
Check out mossy creek mushrooms on YouTube. He explains quite a bit about growing mushrooms and is beginner friendly. I donāt think he talks about still air boxes though. The shroomery.com is the place for that. They have a gourmet section.
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Plus, you can use the laminar flow hood to do tissue culture with plants!
Thanks Dam, all good advise but my wife will kill me if āinvestā in anything right now. If I could figure out how to turn all the cardboard from Amazon into mushrooms with out breaking the bank that would be great but so many other things to work on before getting serious again.
we have winecap spores to put out this week.
my friend makes the dowel plugs for shiitake and sends me a bag every year; heās not local and I cannot make him understand that I canāt get oak logs here. at all. Iāve spent two years trying to get oak, and it seems impossible. there just isnāt any.
my partner was about to order a f#*@!ing log for like 50 dollars from ETSY just to get us some oak. I told him no
could I grow shiitake on or in any other medium? sawdust, straw, vermiculite, grain? anything?
edit to add I ended up sending last yearās present to my sister, who grew them out on the east coast where oak chunks are apparently growing on trees. I still have this yearās batch in the fridge, waiting to see what to do with em
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Check out Field And Forestās website for info. Their chart on logs to use will be posted below. There are several trees that should work for you.
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the only thing there Iāve seen locally was cherry because someone was cutting one out of the garden. Iāll keep that list though, just in case.
could I do them in a container or bin with oak shavings, alder shavings or the like? I could get shavings easier than a log.