Mid Hudson Mycological Association:  http://www.midhudsonmyco.org and/or Facebook Page

Hudson Valley Food Network:  http://www.hvfoodnetwork.com / Facebook Page

Instructor Marc Eisenson: MarcEisenson@frontiernet.net

If you like to eat mushrooms, you can:
• Buy them
• Forage for them
• Grow them yourself

You know what to do if you want to buy them, and if you want to learn about foraging for or growing mushrooms, I strongly recommend that you consider joining the Mid Hudson Mushroom Club. Applications are available at: http://www.midhudsonmyco.org/

Most members of the club are interested in edible mushrooms, and that's why I assume you're here today. When it comes to eating mushrooms, there are five main categories to consider:
• Inedible mushrooms
• Edible mushrooms
• Poisonous mushrooms
• Palatable mushrooms and, of most interest to me,
• Delicious mushrooms

Three of my favorite Delicious mushrooms are: Oysters, Shiitake, and Wine Cap Stropharia. (For those who want to learn the official names, they are: Pleurotus ostreatus, Lentinula edodes and Stropharia rugosoannulata).

Oyster Shiitake Wine Cap Stropharia

Oyster mushrooms and Wine Cap Stropharia both grow wild in this part of the world, and can be found if you know when and where to look … and are lucky. For Shiitake, your choices are to buy them or grow them.

Today I'll briefly describe how I've grown these 3 mushrooms.

1. Shiitake. These were the first mushrooms I tried to grow. The method is simple (but not easy). All you need are oak logs, an electric drill, a 5/16 inch drill bit, a hammer and wooden plugs with mushroom spawn growing on them. I bought my plugs from Fungi Perfecti, http://www.fungi.com/

The logs need to have been recently cut … about 6 weeks before you intend to “inoculate” them. I recommend you go for logs that are about 3 feet long with a diameter in the 4 to 6 inch range. (The first time I grew Shitakes, we used logs with a much larger diameter. They weighed a ton! )

Drill 5/16 inch holes about 4 inches apart, all around the log (about 50 holes in a typical log). Then hammer one plug into each hole. Put the logs in a shady spot. After that, you basically water and wait. In about a year, Shiitakes pop out!

We’ve been growing Shitakes for around 15 years and at this point, we’re pretty blasé about it. Unless it’s been really dry, we don’t bother to water ours.

2. Wine Cap Stropharia. These are the easiest! They love to grow in wood chips. We try to get truck loads of chips from the various road crews that pass by. Then we spread those wood chips a few inches thick all around our property (they make great mulch). And then we wait.

Sooner or later, Stropharia will grow in such large quantities, we beg friends to stop by and harvest them. To speed up the process, we move some of the mycelium (the part of the mushroom that grows underground) from one location in order to “seed” a new wood chip covered area.

A couple of years ago, we learned that Stropharia also like to grow in cardboard! One fall, we used cardboard covered by hay to kill off some weeds in a new section of our vegetable garden. The next spring, much to our surprise and delight, we were harvesting Stropharia before the plants went in!

3. Oysters. Oysters are one of the easiest mushrooms to grow, and you can even grow them indoors in winter. They’re not too finicky about what they'll grow in: logs, compost, straw, grain … . I've had the most success growing them in straw. For this project you need Oyster spawn (grown on rye berries), which you can purchase from Fungi Perfecti or a number of other suppliers. I grow my own these days on rye berries that I buy at the health food store

You'll also need straw (not hay), a laundry type basket, anti-bacterial liquid soap, lime and gypsum (available from garden supply stores … I got mine from Adams), and a cooler that you don’t mind having full of all of the above.

Growing Oyster Mushrooms in Straw: Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Put chopped straw in a large picnic cooler. (People use lawn mowers and weed whackers inside of garbage pails to chop the straw. These days, I just rip it by hand as best I can as I put it in the cooler.)
2. Fill the cooler with hot tap water, add a couple of squirts of anti-bacterial hand or dish soap, then mix well until sudsy. (Don't burn your hands in the hot water!)
3. Close the cooler, and let it sit for 2 hours. This will “pasteurize” the straw, then empty the straw and water out of the cooler — carefully – they’re hot!
4. Partly fill the cooler with hot tap water stir in 1 cup of lime and add the straw. plus enough boiling water to cover the straw and raise the temperature to between 160 and 180 degrees.
5. Let it sit, covered, for no less than 60 minutes and no more than 90 minutes, then carefully remove the very hot straw and let it cool.
6. Put layers of straw into the laundry basket, followed by layers of the Oyster spawn. The last layer should be straw. Then weigh it down with a dish or tray, etc.
7. Put the basket into a plastic bag with one end open.
8. When the mycelium has spread throughout the straw (you’ll see white “cottony stuff” around the edges) remove the plastic bag.
9. Keep moist, and pretty soon, you’ll see mushrooms popping up out of the sides and top of the laundry basket.
10. Harvest and enjoy.

Photo from July 9

We also experimented with the straw and basket method. First, we chopped up 3 baskets of straw into 1-3 inch pieces using a garbage pail and a weed whacker. The straw was then soaked for 2 hours in 2 coolers in140 degree water and anti-bacterial soap to sterilize it. We strained as much water as possible, added some lime to start the decomposition process, added more hot water (140-160 degrees) and let soak a little longer. At this point we strained the straw and let it cool a bit. Each basket was layered with straw and mushroom spawn inoculated rye berries (oyster mushrooms). There's going to be a lot of mushrooms for the November meal!