Mushrooms and Yard Sharing

Mr. Homegrown contemplates his many writing tasks.

Mr. Homegrown needs your help with two topics. First, for our second book, I’d like to talk to someone who has successfully grown oyster mushrooms from spawn. I’m looking for advice on preparing and inoculating the growing medium. I’m not looking for folks who have grown oyster mushrooms from kits which, in my humble opinion, are not cost effective. If anyone knows of well written step by step directions somewhere on the interwebs, please let me know, or better yet if you’ve done it yourself send me an email. And yes, there is Paul Stamets, but some psilocybin freak stole all his books out of the LA library.

Secondly, I’m writing another article for Urban Farm Magazine and I’d like to speak to anyone who has set up or been a part of a yard sharing program. You get extra points if you are in New Jersey or Philadelphia. I’m not looking for my fellow Californians, as there have been too many Golden State types in my previous articles.

Contact me at homegrownevolution(at)sbcglobal.net or leave a comment. Thanks!

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11 Comments

  1. I’m actually working on growing oyster mushrooms at the moment from a compost medium, I inoculated the medium about a month ago. That reminds me I need to check on it tomorrow. Also my old boss and professor at Cal poly has grown them from soaked toilet paper rolls. is that an acceptable method? Toilet paper isn’t exactly homegrown.

  2. p.s. Wish you would have asked 3 days ago I just returned all my mushroom growing books to the university library and i still had a month left on them. I had 2 of stamets and about 8 others. I could probably check them out again if you like.

  3. It’s pretty far away, but interesting nonetheless: when I was in Ethiopia in November I stumbled across a whole exhibit for a project teaching small urban farmers to grow oyster mushrooms! I’ll be back next year and plan to visit some of the farmers. Click my name for some photos.

  4. here is the simplest way I think.
    http://www.wildmushrooms.org/frames/oms_peroxide.htm

    I have grown two batches of oysters years ago. Stopped because i don’t have proper room for growing them. I used a different older process. First you find some healthy looking straw( no mold etc) then you boil it to make it sterile, cold, mix the spawn, pack the substrate into plastic bags, place into your basement and wait for the mushrooms to grow. Simple if you follow few simple rules.

  5. If you need a source for spawn, you can order it from Fungi Perfecti. You can get a kit from them and then use that to innoculate other batches. According to Paul’s books, nearly anything can be used as a substrate for Oyster Mushrooms. Coffee grounds to grass clippings to recycled paper (no heavy elements in the ink or printings) work. Hardwood rounds or logs split in half with spawn samwiched between them work too.

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