Cultivating an Outdoor Stropharia Mushroom Patch

Can I just say that I LOVE mushrooms!  But, I have to confess that I was one of those people that thought early on that I hated them; all I had been exposed to were canned button mushrooms.  That was until they opened a mushroom cultivation farm in our small town and I had my first freshly sautéed white button mushrooms.  I was hooked. Fast forward to tasting my first wild mushroom and a whole other new world opened up to me.

I have long loved foraging for wild mushrooms, but find myself wanting to know more about cultivating my own.  I started with a few indoor patches, but I find that my mushroom craze is a disease.  I need more - so we put in our first outdoor mushroom patch.

This particular mushroom has quite a few names.  The Latin name is Stropharia rugosoannulata.  I had read somewhere that it could be native to the northeast - it is known there as the Wine Cap; other mushroom experts aren't so sure that it is native to North America at all.  Other names are  King Stropharia,  Burgundy, Garden Giant, and in Japan it is know as saketsubatake.  It is a favorite for outdoor cultivation because it is relatively easy to grow in zones 3-9.  Click on the link above (the Latin name) for more info on positively identifying this mushroom.  It is fairly distinctive, which is another thing that makes it good for beginners.  You always want to identify before you eat.

We chose the lasagna method, but using both wheat straw and hardwood chips instead of one or the other only.  Hardwood chips for a substantial food source that will last, and wheat straw for its ability to hold moisture and thereby encourage mycelium growth.

I have included step by step instructions and suggestions where to buy the products necessary to put it together.  I will post updates as they happen.  Let us know if you try it!  You can post your pictures on our Facebook page: Rowdy Ruby's Urban Farm.  We'd love to see them.

One 5 lb bag of spawn will inoculate an area approximately 10'x10'.

You might want to look for a regional producer of sawdust spawn.  We got ours from Fungi Perfecti.  I have ordered indoor patch kits from them in the past and have been very pleased with their service and products; and they are here in our region.  Plus, Paul Stamets, the owner, is pretty much the guru on mushroom cultivation.  I own and recommend his book Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms.

The wheat straw (stay away from hay or grass straw) should be fresh. You should be able to find it at your local feed store.  We soaked it in our yard debris container after we cleaned it well.

Pre-soaking it does a couple of things: 1. It semi-sanitizes it by submersing and therefore depriving of oxygen any other entities that might be competition, and 2. Wheat straw is great at holding moisture, which is advantageous to keeping the whole patch moist while the mycelium is getting started.  

We thought about doing it on straw alone - which is another option; but considering that Stropharia go through their food quickly, leaving behind a rich compost, some hardwood chips will keep it happier longer.

Choose an area that will receive partial shade.  We chose to put our patch in a corner of our garden under our grape vine, which is under a giant cherry tree.  The cardboard provides an additional barrier from anything that could be lurking in the soil that would want to compete with the mushrooms and inhibit growth.  

Spring is a good time to start a patch because you want a minimum of leaf debris, 

according to Mr. Stamets.

Stropharia will grow on a variety of hardwood chips, but stay away from black walnut.  You can have some coniferous (from trees with needles instead of leaves) chips included but no more than 50% of the total mixture; according to a blog I read from Cornell University Horticulture extension.  Click on the link for additional information.

We found a great mixture of hardwood chips at a nearby landscaping materials business.  Look for one that specializes in a variety of mulches.

I was pleased with the mixture we found.  A nice variety of hardwoods.

We decided to build a barricade to hold our "lasagna" because it will make it easier to put wire around to keep the chickens out when the time comes and those tasty morsels start popping.  We went with re-purposed pallets because of the gaps.  We mulch a lot with straw and with some luck, our mycelium will jump from the initial bed area once it is going strong, and spread elsewhere in the garden.

And of course, Buffy had to supervise the process.

Use about half the bale of wheat straw in the first layer.

Marking the bag makes it easier to know when you have spread half the sawdust spawn 

in your first layer.

Be sure to spread the sawdust spawn as evenly as you can

So to recap, our "lasagna" was as follows: 

Cardboard

Thin layer of hardwood chips

Thin layer of soaked straw

Thin layer of hardwood chips

1/2 the sawdust spawn

Thin layer of hardwood chips

Soak

Chips

Straw

Chips

Spawn

Chips

Soak

The whole thing should end up about a foot deep.  By doing the multiple thin layers, it is almost like mixing the hardwood chips and straw together without actually having to do it.

Spray the patch twice a day to keep it moist on warm, dry days.

Depending upon a lot of variables, you could see mushrooms fruiting as soon as 2 months, up to 1 year.  The fruiting of mushrooms you get a full year after installing your patch should be bountiful.

I will post updates and recipes in the months to come.  Keep your fingers crossed for us!

*Update* May 23, 2016

We got our first mushrooms!!!

Our Very First Picture-Worthy Wine Cap Mushroom!

We have learned a lot over the last year.  We made a few adjustments and fought off chickens and squirrels, but we have mushrooms.  It is still a little cooler than their optimal fruiting temperature, so we have high hopes that we will see even more this year.

Here are a few of the challenges we faced:

1)  We over-watered the whole patch.  We had great mycelium forming the first few months and then it went away.  We added another 5 lbs of sawdust spawn, cut back on the amount of water, and ordered an RV hose filter like this - just in case the chlorine in the water was hampering our endeavor:

Easy to put on the hose and filter the chlorine out.  Costs about $18

2)  Our chickens like the mycelium a little too much.  So do the squirrels.  We fought back by laying sections of chicken wire directly on top of the wood chips.  Since the location with the old grape vine isn't conducive to fencing it all off, this seems like the most logical fix to our problem.  The biggest drawback so far is that we have to watch carefully when the fruit is forming, to remove the wire and cover the mushrooms with baskets to protect them while they mature.  We were slow to see the first mushrooms that formed and they got smooshed up against the wire.  They weren't pretty, so I didn't get a photo, but they were so tasty!!!  Our first taste of this mushroom and we're ready for more!  We could eat lots and lots of these delicious fungi.