If you don’t want to limit yourself to just collecting them in the forest to enjoy delicious edible mushrooms, you can sometimes grow them yourself in your own garden or cellar. However, some types of mushrooms are still not so easy to plant artificially.

What types of edible mushrooms can you grow yourself?

Nowadays there are many different varieties of edible mushrooms that mushroom lovers can also grow themselves. For this purpose, spores of the desired type of fungus are applied to a suitable substrate. A basic distinction can be made between tree fungi that grow on pieces of wood, such as oyster mushrooms, and fungi that grow out of the ground, such as button mushrooms.

How do mushrooms generally grow?

Mushroom growth has peculiarities compared to vegetable and fruit varieties. The popular saying that mushrooms often "shoot out of the ground" after a summer rain is based on the fact that the mushrooms collected are only the fruiting bodies above the surface of the earth. Most types of fungus first form a widely branched mycelium in the soil or in a suitable substrate such as straw, which finally forms the fruiting bodies above the soil surface for harvest by humans and animals.

Tree mushrooms for ready culture outdoors

When cultivating mushrooms outdoors, it is a problem that the spores of other species of mushrooms attach themselves to your own culture as part of the propagation and can thus represent a displacement or a potential danger when consumed. In the case of ready-to-eat cultures of oyster and lime mushrooms, a small plastic greenhouse is placed over the respective log. In this way you also ensure that there is a balanced climate inside for the growth of the mushrooms.

Growing mushrooms in the basement or tool shed

Various types of edible mushrooms can also be grown relatively easily in the basement or in the mini greenhouse on the windowsill. These include, for example:

  • shiitake
  • white mushroom
  • stone mushroom
  • King Oyster Mushroom
  • Pioppino

Ready-made complete sets are commercially available, the substrate of which has been inoculated with the spores of the respective fungus species. You only need to water this well so that after a few weeks the mycelium forms the desired fruiting bodies for the harvest.

How to store excess mushrooms?

If you're lucky when growing mushrooms, you can sometimes get a bounty in a matter of days. However, harvested mushrooms often only keep for a few days. If you cannot use all the mushrooms fresh, you can freeze or dry the mushrooms. However, they should not be washed beforehand, just cleaned with a soft brush so that the mushrooms do not lose their taste.

tips and tricks

Mushrooms and porcini mushrooms can be cut into thin slices, dried and later soaked in water to make them usable again. Porcini mushrooms are also often ground into porcini flour and used as a spice for soups and sauces.

Category:

Vegetable garden