I've been growing several different species of
mushrooms for over 30 years now- shiitake, oysters, lion's mane, winecaps, etc. In the past few years I've also had some success with morels. I'm posting this now because I think that early September is a good time to start morel projects in the Pacific Northwest.
One of the keys to success with morels is to grow the right species. Although I've had some success (and plenty of failures) with other species of morels, I've come to the conclusion that growing the landscape black morel (
Morchella importuna) is the easiest one to cultivate in the Pacific Northwest. Here is a timeline of how I learned to grow morels:
March 2019: I ordered Landscape Black Morel spawn from everythingmushrooms.com in Knoxville, TN.
4/4/19: I started 3 beds of morels in my forest farm garden in heavily shaded rectangular beds in between various fruit
trees including cherries, plums and an
apple. In two of the beds, I created lasagna-style beds with hardwood chips, agricultural lime, morel spawn and
cardboard sheeting in 2-3 different layers. The third bed was simply a shady unused veggie bed where I sprinkled lime and spawn, watered it and then covered the bed with cardboard sheeting. All beds were heavily watered.
3/21/20: In the third bed, I noticed my first landscape morel next to the cardboard. No morels were ever found in the two lasagna (layered) beds.
April 2020: From the third bed, I harvested about 13 nice sized morels. The flavor was excellent.
Spring 2021 and Spring 2022: I harvested dozens of morels from the third bed again. I also sprinkled more lime in bed #3 right on top of the cardboard and around the edges. Also covered up some of the rotting cardboard with some fresh pieces of cardboard.
Spring 2023: No morels in the garden this year.
Labor Day Weekend 2023: I ordered more Landscape Black Morel spawn from Everything Mushrooms.
9/26/23: I broadcasted the morel spawn onto three beds in the heavily shaded area of my garden, including bed #3 again. Also sprinkled lime and covered the areas with new cardboard. We received about 1.6 inches of rain during this period. I covered the beds with
chicken wire to prevent birds from digging around the edges.
3/1/24- 3/5/24: It was extremely cold and wet here with lots of rain and a sprinkling of snow.
3/5/24: I noticed the first landscape morel in old bed #3. On this day I also picked several landscape morels from bark dust landscaping beds next to a
local supermarket parking lot- a typical habitat for "wild" landscape morels. These beds were surrounded by
concrete curbs and had dripline
irrigation in place for the ornamental plants- also typical.
3/26/24- 4/20/24: I harvested several landscape morels from my garden, some of them quite large. Most were from old bed #3, although a couple were from one of the new beds. During this period I also started some new beds with soil and spores from the parking lot morels using bark dust, lime and cardboard. I'm hoping for bigger crops next spring...
I'd like to hear from other folks who might have had success growing morels.
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