Growing Gourmet Mushrooms on Fresh Stumps Outdoors

[Joe from the Carolinas]

I decided that 2018 is going to be a fallow year. I'll harvest garlic during the summer and that's it.

A few storms rolled through and gave me lots of downed timber in a partial shade wooded area on the farm. Here's a small sample of what I'm doing with the free materials. I shot a tutorial on how to grow your own gourmet mushrooms on freshly cut stumps outside.

Inoculated stumps push out mushrooms for 4-7 years once the mycelium takes hold. Fall-Winter is the best time to have fresh lumber, because all of the sugars are stored in the wood (rather than the leaves). Mycelium/Mushrooms feed off of those sugars.

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[Zampano]

Hello Joe

Thanks for sharing your mushy mushroom project ;-)

I started 4 years ago with growing some King Oyster Mushrooms on small straw bales and it worked pretty good.
Also I did Shi-Take on Oak logs (takes at least 6 months, depending on the size of the log to bear fruit) and had a nice harvest for 2 years. Usually you can harvest longer, but I had a very cold 2 week period of time in winter and unfortunately I didnt cover them.
This year in April I started with different kind of Oyster Mushrooms on Beach Wood (30cm) and after 5 months, the first Mushrooms appeared. For some I used Mycelia Dowels and for some I used Mycelia Corn. It didnt make any difference in growing time, but for the Mycelia Corn you have to cut "slices" into the wood and fill it with the material. Which is more work than the Dowel Method.

At the very very start, I also used grow bags with already infected biological material as saw dust, and it worked well too. But it was just for the beginning to get in touch with the topic of Growing Mushrooms. And this Grow Bags are expensive too.

One very important thing I learned...always use FRESH CUT WOOD LOGS. Reason why...in older wood you may have already other funghi spores in it, which makes it hard to spread out for the wanted Mushroom. Had to learn it the hard way :-(
Always work clean (cuts, fresh mycelia, storing place)-close the Mycelia spots with Bee wax and/or tape very good.
And last, dont let them dry out during the summer, because they dont like it hot.

Next year, I would like to try the Treestump method too...I have to cut a cherry tree and a mulberry tree-lets see.

And Joe...dont let 2018 be a fallow year-an empty garden is a waste of possible ressources :-)