Alli's Garden: Mushrooms

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Mushrooms

I have never had so many good ideas day after day as when I worked in the garden. ~John Erskine

The newest experiment! Mushrooms indoors! Blue Oyster, Shiitake, Somona Brown Oyster, and Pom Pom Blanc mushrooms are the plan! James has been very patient... with only an occasional "I don't know about this..." or "Ok, on the coffee table is OK, as long as it isn't growing ON the [wooden] coffee table".

We are light limited at the moment. Our balcony space and all are windows are rather full. So, we wondered what can we grow in indirect light. Especially on our remaining free spaces such as our coffee table, bookshelf, and above our kitchen cabinets? We got the mushrooms in the mail a week ago, and I must admit, one glance and we were both a little skeptical. The mushroom "logs" looked a bit... well, let's just say they didn't exactly boost James' confidence.

Each log has slightly different instructions. The picture below is me washing the shiitake mushrooms, preparing it for a "flush" which is what you call it when a group of mushrooms' bloom. Surprisingly it didn't smell bad at all... it actually smelled like rich soil!

And here's the Blue Oyster mushroom log all set up in a dish of water to keep it humid and prepped for growing mushrooms!

Here are some pictures of what we are going to grow. The photos are from Gourmet Mushrooms (gmushrooms.com) which I'd recommend as a good indoor mushroom kit supplier!