Imagine if you went out bird watching and half the birds didn’t have names. That’s where we are with fungi according to mycologist Noah Siegel. Fungi are essential for life on this planet, but since they are mostly out of site and out of mind they don’t get the credit or protection due to them.

Siegel delivered an entertaining lecture at this year’s Los Angeles Mycological Society Mushroom Fair this past weekend. He emphasized the important role amateurs can play simply through photography and posting reports in apps like iNaturalist.

When Siegel was asked about the medicinal benefits of certain mushrooms he responded by saying that, “there’s a lot of snake oil out there.” Amen to that. I have to say I’ve become increasingly frustrated with some in the mycology sphere who are more interested in self promotion than in exploring the fungal world in all its majesty and complexity. Comrades, we need better science popularizers!

I also had the privilege of taking a cultivation class the day before the fair taught by Peter McCoy. He taught us a cultivation technique invented by an amateur Robert McPherson, aka Psylocybe Fanaticus, that makes use of sterilized mason jars to inoculate grain. McPherson’s method, which he calls PF Tek, allows you to propagate fungi in your kitchen without a lot of expensive lab equipment. You do need a pressure canner which I’m lobbying the administration here at Root Simple to let me order.

Odds are there’s a mycological society near you. While it’s interesting to grow mushrooms and forage for edible species it’s also just plain fun to look at them wherever they are, in the woods, in a garden or in an alley.

If you’re a local, the LA Mycological society has a very cool reading group run by Aaron Thompson. It’s free and you can sign up here.

A few months ago a light bulb went off. I mostly produce oak sawdust which just happens to be one of the ideal substrates for growing mushrooms. While I love looking at mushrooms and attending lectures about mushrooms via the Los Angeles Mycological Society, I don’t know anything about growing them and my two previous attempts were complete failures.

Techniques for growing mushroom range from simple to extremely high tech. For this experiment I wanted to try the simplest method I could find that would not require buying equipment, plastic bags or maintaining a temperature and humidity controlled indoor environment. Put simply, I wanted to try growing mushrooms outdoors on oak sawdust in Southern California, a region not known for growing mushrooms.

I asked a few friends who know much more about growing mushrooms than I do. They all suggested trying oyster mushrooms since this species easily out-competes molds and other organisms that try to colonize the substrate.

I ordered a four pound bag of blue oyster grain spawn from North Spore. Following the instructions on Fresh Cap Mushroom’s YouTube channel, I poked 1/4 inch holes in the sides of a five gallon bucket and 1/8 inch holes in the bottom to drain excess water. The white oak I used mostly came out my planer and jointer, both of which produce thin chips of wood that get sucked up by my dust collector.

On January 4th, I put the chips in a plastic bin and soaked them in boiling water to pasteurize them and give the oyster mushroom spawn a better chance of growing. I let the wood chips soak overnight. The next day I squeezed excess water out of the chips and put them in my holey (holy?) bucket, alternating layers of wood chips and spawn. I placed the bucket outside under the dense shade of our avocado tree. You can also, by the way, use straw instead of wood chips.

By January 18th the oyster mushrooms were “pinning,” that is, beginning to fruit out of the 1/4 inch holes. On January 27th, I harvested my first cluster of mushrooms. I can report that blue oyster mushrooms are delicious, with a concentrated umami/super-mushroomy flavor.

One curious thing: the mushrooms I harvested look more like the Italian Oyster mushrooms that North Spore sells, so I wonder if a mix-up happened. I’ve written North Spore for a clarification. [Editors note: North Spore got back to me and they say that these are blue oyster and the the Italian oyster has a wavier cap.]

This was my third and only successful attempt at growing mushrooms. The spawn cost $28 and I’ve harvested about 2 pounds of mushrooms so I can’t call this experiment a financial success just yet, though it looks like I might get a second flush out of the bucket. Financial considerations aside, the mushrooms were so delicious that I am definitely going to try this experiment again. Towards that end I’m taking a class this month with mushroom expert Peter McCoy.

Working backwards to the more involved processes of growing your own spawn and developing your own strains is, I’m guessing, the best way to make this more sustainable. I may try growing some pink oyster mushrooms, though I’ve heard mixed reports about flavor. McCoy is sending us home with kits so I’ll report back on how those grow.