Grow Your Own Mushrooms

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More than 14,000 species of mushrooms have been identified, but only about 250 species are delectable edibles. Of the best-tasting mushrooms, many species defy cultivation and must be found in the wild rather than grown. But some can be grown using an approach that parallels the one we use to grow plants. Start with a vigorous strain appropriate for your region (most often sold as spawn, which is young mycelium), provide it with a suitable substrate upon which to feed and a moist, shady site, and be ready to furnish water or a change of temperature at critical times.

The reward for your efforts will be some of the freshest, tastiest mushrooms you’ll ever eat. Don Simoni of Mushroom Adventures, a San Francisco kit company, says, “A lot of the mushrooms at the market are three to five days old before you buy them, but they’re really good for only two days and then there’s a flavor change.”

You also need patience to grow mushrooms because they fruit only when they are good and ready. Stamets says, “It is my belief that fungi take a very long-term view of their habitat, and they are community-based,” which means fruiting is intended to serve both the fungus and the ecological system it calls home. Edible mushrooms are a minor byproduct of this process.

The easiest culinary mushrooms to grow at home are oysters, shiitake, wine caps and portobellos, but many more possibilities exist. Here’s a closer look at the four named above:

Oysters

Oysters vary in flavor but generally are considered milder than shiitake, and they have a delicate texture that makes them difficult to ship, so they are rarely seen in stores. The stems are slightly tough, but oyster caps are delicious sautéed and served on a sandwich. In the wild, oyster mushrooms are primary decomposers of newly dead trees, especially low-density hardwoods such as cottonwood and poplar. Fast-growing and versatile, oyster mushrooms also will thrive on partially decomposed straw or sawdust. Color varies with the strain; oysters may be white, gray, pink or yellow.

Oyster kits are usually a mass of sticky white mycelium that has fully colonized a small tower of wheat or oat straw, which is enclosed in a perforated plastic bag. Kept moist and humid, the tower soon explodes with oysters, and most kits will produce two flushes. After that, you can use the almost-spent mycelium to inoculate a compost heap or stuff it into cracks between pieces of wood.

You also might try this: Mix it with damp sawdust, coffee grounds and a little straw, stuff it into paper milk cartons with holes punched in the sides, and stash those in plastic bags in the basement. A few months later, you’ll probably have several nice fruitings.

Obviously, you can be pretty creative growing oysters, though it’s best to not forget that these guys really want to be growing on a tree. (Commercially, oysters are grown on columns of sterilized straw, which are hung from ceilings like punching bags.) The mycelium will run horizontally in a sawdust bed, but it might not fruit until it encounters a vertical surface. For inexpensive, low-maintenance oyster production, you can buy plugs of spawn that you tap into holes drilled in newly felled logs. Inoculated with oyster mushroom spawn, the logs are handled just like those used to grow shiitake, but oyster mushrooms are faster to fruit. Kept outdoors, they typically fruit from mid-spring to early summer, and again in the fall. Spells of cool, damp weather trigger fruiting sprees, but the exact timing varies with the climate in which they are grown.

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