I thought some folks might want to see an update on what I’ve been growing. For reference, I tried to grown button mushroom spawn on boiled cardboard, only to learn a few days later that this shouldn’t be possible. Imagine my surprise when the mycelium started growing anyway!
So it’s been about three weeks now and growth has been painfully slow, but then again they didn’t really have any decent food. I also realized when I opened the container that there was still way too much moisture in the cardboard. Today I transferred what I could into grain jars to give it a better chance at growth. Basically I went through all the layers and peeled the cardboard apart, then tore off smaller chunks of anything that had decent growth on it. This was divided between a jar of popcorn kernels and a jar of rye berries, so I have a good chance of one or both jars really expanding the small amount of spawn I had available. Considering this was started from chopped stems I got at the grocery store, I’d say I’m doing pretty good so far!
I’ve started doing some reading on how to make the pasteurized compost for this type of mushroom, hoping to start picking up supplies next weekend to get it ready.
I made a couple other posts here at the same time as this one, check those out for a bit more info on what I’ve been up to – but essentially I started this experiment before I had my grains available and wanted to see if I could keep things clean enough to get these started. These button mushrooms were actually started in open air, yet amazingly I managed to not get any contamination! Since then I have set up several jars of rye berries and popcorn kernels, gotten my oyster mushroom starts transferred to those (pink and blue), and then also transferred the button mushrooms to some of those jars. The grains were prepped in the pressure cooker, and all transfers were done in a still air box…
So yes, I have all of that equipment on hand already, plus fruiting bags, chopped straw, and lime for pasteurization, and I’m starting to search for supplies to fruit the button mushroom in. I’m just about all set once I have everything expanded out suitably. Once I can grow these I plan to try lion’s mane and shitakes next. The idea isn’t so much what I can buy locally, but rather to get some practice at what I can grow myself.
Oh, alright. I didn’t know that, sorry. I thought you were a newcomer without any prior knowledge :D Again, sorry^^
Yeah, mushrooms are weird man. They eat basically everything they can find. They’re both the biggest divas and the most aggressive motherfuckers I know, at the same time. Some people report oyster mushrooms growing in their toilet (r/Toiletshrooms), and at the same time I get contamination in the most sterile environment possible.
Keep doing what you do and experiment - just like me. I will post one of my crazy experiments too here, soon. Keep being up to date!
If you are in Germany or central europe, I can send you some gourmet cultures aswell if you like to. Like huge portobello mushrooms, which are the same as you grow, only in huge. I have a truckload of different species at home, many of which are cloned from the supermarket. Hit me up if you like :)