DIY mushroom growing takes a “village” or, at least, a family. Andrew, JC, Robin, and Austin join in preparing and “planting” the spores in the logs where mushrooms happily grow.
You can grow mushrooms in straw, sawdust, compost, even coffee grounds. But my grandson Austin is growing them on logs in his backyard. He ordered hundreds of plug spawns for such hardy species as Lion’s Mane, Shiitake, Pearl, and Blue Oyster. As you can see in the photo below, the sterilized birch plugs are spirally grooved. The little wooden bullets come fully colonized with pure mushroom mycelium and ready to implant in oak logs.
Follow the step by step process below. It takes almost a year to get mushrooms with this procedure. If you’re impatient, you can order a mushroom growing kit that comes with a small log already loaded with mycelium. All the wood pieces need is watering and you have fungi in a matter of days. But this is more fun.
Backyard Mushrooming: How It’s Done
These sterilized birch plugs are fully colonized by pure mushroom mycelium.
Here’s a plug in one of the inch-deep holes drilled into the log. It’s now ready to be hammered into place. A 3 to 4-foot log holds about 50 plugs.
It took a few practice swings before I could get the plugs in smoothly.
Here’s what the end of the plug looks like when you hammer it too vigorously.
Melted wax applied from the end of a sponge seals each plug in place.
A drilled, plugged, and waxed log waits to be stacked.
Proper stacking allows air to circulate between the logs.
The logs need to be watered down several times a week. When white blotches appear on the ends of the logs, mushrooms will soon follow.
If all goes well, mushrooms should sprout next year like these Shitakes have on similar logs.
But for Robin, the enjoyment of mushrooming is the woodland search and surprise discovery. Having both a domestic grower and a wild mushroom hunter in the family, I hope to have a steady supply of fungi in the kitchen.
