Category: General
55 Results
Getting a Second Flush from Shiitake Blocks
One of my favorite things about growing mushrooms is how they just keep giving and giving! Once you get a successful first flush, you are likely to get second, third and sometimes even fourth flush off the same straw log or fruiting block. Getting multiple flushes is the best way to get the highest overall
Growing Mushrooms The Easy Way (Outdoor Garden)
Let’s face it, growing mushrooms can be complicated. You have to worry about managing cultures, sterilizing grains, making spawn, mixing substrates and trying to do it all without introducing contamination that could ruin your whole project. Of course, if you love growing mushrooms as much as I do, all those complicated terms sound like music
Growing Shiitake Mushrooms
There are few mushrooms as iconic as The Shiitake. And although growing shiitake mushrooms requires some specialized skills and tactics, it is still a strong favorite among cultivators- both professional and amateur alike. In fact, Shiitake is one of the most commonly cultivated mushrooms in the world. And for good reason. The Shiitake is a
Using Pressure Cookers for Growing Mushrooms
If you ‘re wanting to grow mushrooms at home, you need to get yourself a dependable pressure cooker. There’s really just no way around it. You see, fighting contaminates is a constant battle. The cultivator needs to be aware of potential sources of contamination, and how to prevent the bad guys from getting a leg-up
Growing Oyster Mushrooms Outside
Growing oyster mushrooms doesn’t have to be complicated. Sure it’s fun to have a highly controlled grow room, to monitor the environment and to try and optimize to perfection things like humidity, temperature and fresh air. But sometimes, we just want to grow some mushrooms. And I can’t think of a better way to do that than
How To Inoculate Grain Jars and Make Any Grain Spawn You Want
One of the first steps to growing mushrooms from scratch involves making your own grain spawn. Luckily the process of inoculating grain jars is pretty simple! Once you have a viable mushroom culture ready to go, either grown out on agar or in liquid culture form, you can go ahead and add it to sterilized
Working With Mushroom Cultures on Agar
Growing mushrooms from scratch requires being able to store and properly propagate mushroom cultures (think mycelium) on nutrient rich agar. For the mushroom cultivator, it is an essential skill. Properly transferring cultures allows you to “grow out” mushroom different species for the purpose of making grain spawn. It also allows for the ability to “clean” a
The Yellow Oyster Mushroom
The Yellow Oyster Mushroom, sometimes called the Golden Oyster, is both stunningly beautiful and easy to grow, making it a popular choice among home cultivators. This mushroom grows fast and fruits heavily in vibrantly bright “bouquets”, although the small and relatively thin fruiting bodies usually make for a smaller overall yield. For the most part,
A Mushroom Growers Guide To Preventing Contamination
Growing mushrooms from scratch require a sterile environment, and sterile processes for repeated success. The hard work of transferring cultures on agar, inoculating grain jars, and making fruiting blocks can be ruined from a single mold spore. So how do you minimize the risk of pesky contaminates destroying your grow? You gotta keep it clean.
How To Use Mushroom Grain Spawn
Growing mushrooms starting from ready-made grain spawn is one of the most accessible and beginner friendly ways to get into the hobby of mushroom cultivation. It is slightly more complicated than growing mushrooms from a kit, but the results are totally worth it! You’ll get way bigger yields, a deeper understanding of the process, and the
Mushroom Yield and Biological Efficiency
Mushroom yield and biological efficiency are important parameters that need to be understood and optimized by the mushroom cultivator. When you first start out growing mushrooms, you might not be all that concerned about how many mushrooms you get. At first, just getting some nice looking fruits is a huge success! But as you get more proficient at growing
Understanding Mushroom Substrates
Finding the perfect mushroom substrate for your grow- and getting the right substrate recipe– is one of the most important aspects of mushroom cultivation. New growers will quickly realize that growing mushrooms is significantly different than growing plants. Although the concept of a mushroom substrate can be thought of as somewhat analogous to the soil for
