Growing mushrooms

[karlinann]

Have any of you tried to grow mushrooms? I saw a show on tv today where 2 college guys started a business of growing mushrooms in coffee grind medium and have turned it into a very prosperous business. Wow! If you'd like to watch the video about these guys go to: www.growingagreenerworld.com.

They squeeze the water out of the recycled coffee grinds and then they put it in a box, add some mushroom seed and then close it up and distribute it to the markets. It takes mushroom seed spores about 21 days to sprout. If I can find some mushroom spore/seed root I may try this method.

I love mushrooms and when we lived in Tennessee I found out about the moonlight mushroom farm they have there. They grow them in caves in a compost medium.

[karlinann]

Here is the actual episode about aquaponics and mushrooms. http://www.growingagreenerworld.com/...hroom-growing/

[Snoodle]

I have never cared for mushrooms but my husband loves them. It sounds like a neat idea though.

[BarbCA]

Karlinann, I've never even tried to grow mushrooms but my dad grew a log of Shitaki once and got a bumper crop. He set up the log in his garage and I was amazed that it did so well because the garage was very hot.
The spores are already seeded when you get the kit and all it needs is water.

Territorial seeds carry them and also some plug spores which I know nothing about.
Just Google Territorial and a lot of information will come up. Good luck.

Wish I could grow some Morels but they are hard to get started.

[Mayebarnes]

I lhave lived all my life near one of the biggest Mushroom "mines" in the country.... "Moonlight Mushrooms... it was all under ground mines... .... where the temperature stay the same year round.... and its dark... however they closed down operations about 7years ago.. imported mushrooms ran them out of business..
Again,,, our country does not have an Import tax or fees on goods shipped in and the imported mushrooms are raised and picked where the workers work for next to nothing .. so our company could not pay the decent wages and make a profit.. so they shut down..
And I think our local company was just not competitive in marketing skills. advertisment ,new ideas... ...so another bunch of local people were out of jobs after years with them... the lady across the road from us. in her 50s. had to find a new job.. hard for her..

I like mushrooms .deep fried, fried in butter , on steak. never thought about growing my own tho'.

[Nalani]

That's a shame, Maye. I love mushrooms any which way.

[BarbCA]

There is something going on with the mushrooms that I have gotten recently. I'm afraid they are GMO because they don't rot! I think everyone who cooks mushrooms knows that they don't keep very long before they get mushy and slimy. The last two times I have got them they have been in the fridge long enough that they should show some signs of decay.
Either that or possibly radiated.
When they cook they don't soften as fast as normal either. Guess the produce guy will have to be asked.

[noggie]

We grow shitaki on the farm, get the spawn plugs from Fungi Perfecti Now, we plug about 4 log sections in the spring and they fruit the next year. As we are very casual about the logs, we get shitaki from the logs for about 3 years, instead of 3-5 years. The logs are put on rails in a low shady place that tends to flood with heavy rains and we take what nature gives us. Now that the farm not a CSA anymore, we have dried shitake all winter long. Right now there is a 10 gal jar of dried shitake in storage that is not counting all the fresh ones we have been cooking with since April until about 2 weeks ago