No question: If you want to enjoy tasty forest mushrooms, you have to get up early and also be very lucky. After all, the coveted fruiting bodies do not grow on command and also not always where you expect them to be. Fortunately, some types of mushrooms can also be easily grown in your own garden, for example on a bale of straw or on freshly cut wood.
Cultivated mushrooms can be grown at home
Not all mushroom species can be cultivated
However, this does not apply to the most sought-after noble mushrooms such as the porcini, morels or chanterelles. These are so-called mycorrhizal fungi that can only grow and thrive in close symbiosis with certain living plants. These species therefore require a living environment that is difficult to recreate in your garden. Because of this, it is only possible to cultivate saprophagous species of fungi. These do not live in a close symbiosis, but draw their nutrients from rotting organic materials such as straw, wood or even coffee grounds.
The best cultivated mushrooms for garden culture
You can get the mushroom cultures for these mushrooms in specialized stores, as well as via the Internet. Not only can you grow local types of mushrooms, but you can also cultivate health-promoting medicinal mushrooms yourself - such as Shii-Take or the Chinese morel Mu-Err. These should have a particularly positive effect on people and at least ensure variety on the plate.
Cultivated Mushroom (Agaricus bisporus)
This species, also known as Champignon de Paris, is one of the first successfully cultivated mushrooms ever. Today it is the world's most cultivated mushroom, with different varieties such as white mushroom, brown mushroom and stone mushroom available today.
Shii take (Lentinula edodes)
This well-known medicinal mushroom is particularly popular in Chinese and Japanese cuisine and is rich in healthy vitamins and minerals. You can cultivate it on freshly felled oak, red and hornbeam, birch, alder, cherry or sweet chestnut wood.
Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus)
Also known as oyster mushroom or veal mushroom, this mushroom is a native species found in the woods between December and March. You can also grow this extremely tasty mushroom on straw or on beech, birch, ash, alder, poplar, willow or healthy fruit trees.
King Oyster (Pleurotus eryngii)
Also known as oyster mushrooms, this very tasty mushroom is mainly native to southern and south-western Europe and particularly likes to grow on the dead roots of umbelliferae. A suitable substrate for your own breeding, on the other hand, is straw.
Brown Cap (Stropharia rugosoannulata)
This is not, as is often assumed, the common chestnut boletus, but a cultivated form of the no less tasty red-brown giant boletus. This can easily be raised on inoculated straw bales.
tips
Unfortunately, the mutabilis found in this country cannot be cultivated at home. However, you can cultivate a close relative, the Japanese mutabilis. In terms of popularity in its native Japan, this is second only to shii-take.