Anyone mess with growing mushrooms? Looking at adding it to the ever growing list of random things I've tried lol. Is it easier to start indoors with the fancy grow tents and stuff or is it pretty easy to just try outs side with some long and the little spoor plug things ?

Also for y'all who eat mushrooms a lot ( I don't but never really had anything past the ones you get in the can or come with a steak) what's a good one that acts pretty close to meat ? I've seen people talking about using certain ones and cooking then like steak and and apparently some are a pretty decent substitute and good if your trying to do weight loss.

Many chef's use Portabella's as a meat sub.

Last July, I inoculated around 35 or 40 truckloads of wood chips from tree trimmers (arborist chips) with winecap mycelium. In early May they were incredibly productive for just a few weeks. They put out literal hundreds of pounds of mushrooms.








I should get a great flush in the Fall. I wish the flushes were more spread out. Hundreds of pounds of mushrooms is too much at once. As the mycelium spreads, I suspect I may get thousands of pounds in a flush. They do break the wood chips into soil, which I need for my nursery. My partner had chips dumped in a more shady area at her house. We will inoculate that pile with mycelium from here. Being in the shade, I think the pile will flush longer.

Winecaps smell and taste like asparagus.

Keith

Keith I didnt know i could do my chip piles. But they are in full sun.

Edit apparently i forgot about the oyster mushrooms my wife started in straw last year.


Wolfdog there is no such thing as a meat substitute.

Matt, my piles are in sunlight. I have piles in front of the front barn on the left, by the road and on the hillside by the first barn on the right, behind the bee hive, if you remember where that is?

If you want a start, if you stop by again, I'll give you a 5 gallon bucket of mycelium. I should have enough by now to inoculate hundreds of piles of chips.

Winecaps will even grow on garden paths covered with wood chips.

Keith

Winecaps can get huge, well over a foot across. I think they are better when they first pop up, but the older ones taste okay. Pretty close to every spot I stuck parts of the spawn blocks, had mushrooms in May. I initially put out 20 pounds of spawn, in around 40 places. Most of the flushes were 3 to 4 foot wide, from just a handful, probably weighing less than 1/2 a pound, of spawn.

Keith

I was on a road trip with a friend. We stopped at a diner, I ordered a portabella burger. My buddy say "that sounds good, I'll have one too". When our lunch was served. First words out of his mouth after the first bite, " where's the beef"? We just chuckled ... Burger?? was still good.

Mushrooms aren't a substitute for meat, but they sure are good with meat!