anybody grow mushrooms?

[mopinko]

i am thinking of doing some, but this has also been suggested to me as a good, easy thing for the microfarm. it is appealing especially in this first year when we will be doing so much foundation type work that will not bear anything for a while.

[Denninmi]

1. Well, I don't know if its necessarily easy, but definitely fun.

Certainly more fickle than most crops, but if you can control the conditions carefully you can get regular crops.

I'm not sure if you're talking about doing this commercially or just for your own use, so how you go about it will vary.

For personal use, I've bought spawn from Fungi Perfecti several times, with varying degrees of success. The most successful were the King Stropharia (aka Garden Giant), Shitakes, and the Shaggy Manes. Morels and Lions Mane were near total duds. Oysters and Sulfur Shelf mostly duds, but I got a few.

If I do more in the future, I would stick with the King Stropharia and the Shitakes. The shaggy manes are easy to grow, but the problem I've had with them is that they seem to absorb grit and sand right into their tissue as they develop, and NO amount of cleaning seems to remove it - while tasty, its no fun biting down on sandy gritty mushrooms. So I pretty much have given up on bothering to pick them when they grow.

[mopinko]

2. well, i am working on a microfarm.

mostly really for family, but hoping to have enough surplus to sell to my neighbors.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. Is your question has anybody grown mushrooms, or

has anyone tried to grow mushrooms?

I have tried and failed on a couple different attempts. It definitely is not as easy as the instructions on the packages you buy make it sound. I have given up the hope of growing mushrooms, although there must be a way since there are tons of commercially grown mushrooms for sale.

I have even tried several times to harvest spores from wild mushrooms that I do collect and get them started in all sorts of ways. I guess that they need certain conditions that I just cannot duplicate.

Good luck. It is worth a try but don't have high hopes. You may get lucky, someone has to.

[silverweb]

4. I've been wanting to.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Haven't done anything about it yet, though. I hope you'll share your experiences with us!